Murraylands Medical Centre

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Will the minister guarantee the continued operations of the Murraylands Medical Centre in Tailem Bend? With your leave, Mr Speaker, and the leave of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: The only medical centre in Tailem Bend closed unexpectedly in June, apparently due to unpaid rent. It has since reopened but some local residents are concerned about the ongoing viability of the clinic.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:37): I thank the member for MacKillop for his question and for being very quick to raise this matter when it first came to light in terms of the issues in relation to the rent and the lease for that clinic in Tailem Bend. I am very glad that those issues have been resolved.

Just this week the member for MacKillop and I met with the CEO of the Riverland Mallee Coorong Local Health Network to discuss this issue further, and I have also in the past two weeks met with the doctors who run the services in the Tailem Bend clinic as well. So I am glad that that issue initially in terms of the lease has been resolved; those services are continuing in terms of the clinic. I think the clinic are raising issues in terms of the long-term sustainability of their ability to access GPs, which of course is a similar issue to what has been raised by the member for Stuart and the member for Mount Gambier this week in terms of their communities and GP access as well.

While that is a federal government issue, we are of course doing everything that we can. As I have outlined in relation to other questions, one of the really bright spots that we have in terms of the recruitment and training of GPs across the whole country is what has been going on in the Riverland in the past couple of years through the Riverland Academy of Clinical Excellence and the single employer model, which is now seeing I think between 30 and 40 doctors in that program of training in the Riverland. That starts to give us opportunities in terms of being able to help practices across a broader region to support the provision of GP services, of course as well the provision of hospital services which is of course our main area of responsibility.

So we are now working with the Murraylands clinic to see whether we can support them in the future with a doctor from that Riverland Academy of Clinical Excellence training program to help bolster their GP services in Tailem Bend and ultimately provide more services to the community.