House of Assembly Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1) 55 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time Angaston District Hospital Angaston District Hospital Mrs HURN House of Assembly Schubert Angaston District Hospital Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:49): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Have any additional resources been made available to the Tanunda hospital or the South Australian Ambulance Service in light of ongoing closures at the Angaston hospital emergency department, and, if not, why not? The Hon. C.J. PICTON House of Assembly Kaurna Minister for Health and Wellbeing Angaston District Hospital The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:49): Significant extra resources have been provided to all areas of our health system under this government. We have substantially increased the budget of the health system by some $9 billion since we came to office. That has increased the budget of the Barossa Hills Fleurieu Local Health Network. It has increased the budget of the SA Ambulance Service. It has meant that health services have significant extra budget to be able to provide those services across the state. I was just recently with the member for Light at the new Gawler Ambulance Station, which has additional crews in the outer northern suburbs of Adelaide, which is just one example of the additional resources that are going into our Ambulance Service. Of course, we also have the new emergency department at Gawler, which has additional staff in it, and right across the board the government have hired additional staff to work in our health system: over 1,400 extra nurses above attrition and over 600 extra doctors above attrition, which is not only in our metropolitan area but in country areas right across the state, including in the Barossa Hills Fleurieu Local Health Network. In answer to the member's question—are we providing extra resources—we absolutely are providing extra resources and it stands in stark contrast to the situation that we inherited where nurses were being made redundant. Redundancies were being provided to nurses across our health system. Hundreds and hundreds of nurses were made redundant in the midst of a global pandemic. We are not doing that. We are hiring additional staff; we are hiring paramedics, we are hiring doctors, we are hiring allied health professionals, and we are going to continue to do that because we value and prioritise the health of South Australians.