Mount Barker Ambulance Station

The Hon. D.R. CREGAN (Kavel) (14:19): My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister provide an update on the operational performance of the new Mount Barker Ambulance Station?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:19): Thank you very much to the member for Kavel; I note his extreme level of advocacy on behalf of ambulance services in the Adelaide Hills, particularly in Mount Barker. Cast yourself back to where we were just three years ago. We had a very small, cramped, not fit-for-purpose ambulance station. We had one ambulance serving the community, one 24-hour ambulance crew, despite the massive growth that had happened in the Mount Barker population over the preceding decades and the expected growth to come. That was a wholly unacceptable situation and one that we sought to make sure we remedied, and that is why we prioritised the Mount Barker region for investment in our ambulance service. That is why we committed to a new Mount Barker Ambulance Station and also to additional crews, paramedics and ambulance officers based in Mount Barker and in the Adelaide Hills.

Thanks to the advocacy of the member for Kavel, those things are now there. We now have a brand new ambulance station that is open and we have additional ambulance crews. Of course, in March 2023 an additional 12 paramedics commenced, and then in March 2024 a regional medical transfer team commenced, which had three paramedics and three ambulance officers. Since that time we have seen the crews of Mount Barker responding to an extraordinary increase in the number of cases in the community. Prior to that, of course, those cases were there, but it meant that crews were coming from elsewhere in the Adelaide Hills or from the city to respond, as opposed to crews based locally.

In our first year of government, from March 2022 to February 2023, there were 2,867 cases that were responded to in the Mount Barker community by the Mount Barker crews. In 2024 and 2025 that increased from 2,867 all the way up to 5,202—so a massive increase in cases being responded to locally by the Mount Barker crews, and that is continuing. We are seeing that massive growth continue. In the next six months, from March until August this year, there have been over 3,500 cases just in those six months alone. That is more cases in six months than what used to be seen by crews in an entire year. That means faster response times for local people in the community, and we now have an ambulance station which is fit for purpose for growth into the future.

We have excellent paramedics in Mount Barker. I had the pleasure of meeting a number of them during my time as minister. The morale of those paramedics is high, and the staff are well settled in their brand-new, purpose-built location of the ambulance station as well. It allows faster and quicker access to the freeway, which is obviously very important in accessing not only the Mount Barker region and the growth areas of Mount Barker but also, strategically, across the Adelaide Hills as well, which saves precious minutes when it's about life and death. The shared space and staff crossover improves the on-station collaboration that we have before and after cases and creates better team cohesion.

Adelaide Hills paramedic Gemma Gafney recently completed her paramedicine degree while also working for SAAS and raising two young children, and even adding a stint in Whyalla into the mix. As well as her paramedicine degree, Gemma also brings her experience as an ambulance officer in our Patient Transport Service before she sets out on a SAAS career pathway. It has allowed her to combine her work with her study. That is just one example of the new paramedics based in the Adelaide Hills, servicing the Mount Barker community.

Of course, this adds to our other investments in Mount Barker, which everyone in Mount Barker can see at the moment: the massive crane that has been erected for the new Mount Barker Hospital as well.