Hammill House

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Stuart) (14:34): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister give my community confidence as to the future of Hammill House in Port Pirie? With your leave and that of the house, sir, I will explain further.

Leave granted.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK: There was an announcement by the minister over 12 months ago that this facility will be retained. In response to my question on 24 November last year, it was stated that the government was committed to increasing the capacity to 18 residents; however, at the current number, there are only 10. The uncertainty shown by the local health board is raising grave concerns for the families of the residents, the residents themselves and also all the staff for the continuation and security of their employment and also the residents there.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:35): I thank the member for his question and note his very strong advocacy on behalf of Hammill House and his community's access to aged-care services. For people not aware, Hammill House is a facility adjacent to the Port Pirie Regional Health Service. It is a service for which, about a year or so ago, there was consultation undertaken by the Yorke and Northern Local Health Network in terms of the future of Hammill House, bearing in mind a number of private facilities in the Port Pirie region.

The result of that consultation, with particularly strong advocacy from the member himself, was to retain Hammill House. That has been confirmed by myself and by the Yorke and Northern Local Health Network. The challenge has been that to increase the numbers we need to increase the staffing, very similar to the debate we were having this morning in terms of nursing across the board. This has been an area in which we have had challenges in terms of being able to recruit staff to Hammill House.

It is something that I have been raising very regularly with the Yorke and Northern Local Health Network to pull out every stop to make sure that we can address the staffing issues that have been very long term in Hammill House. They have been actively working to recruit roles. In positive news, I can report that Yorke and Northern Local Health Network have been able to recruit an associate nurse unit manager, who commenced in 2025, and have recently recruited an additional associate nurse unit manager, who is set to commence next month. That is very good news to have those leadership positions there in Hammill House, which are critical in terms of our ability to attract other nurses into that service.

As we were also talking about earlier today in terms of what happened with the Whyalla birthing services, that was critical to turning that around as well: getting strong nursing leadership in place—strong midwifery leadership, in that case. It was critical to be able to attract other midwives to want to work there, and I am confident the same will be the case for Hammill House as well. They have also been able to recruit a temporary nurse unit manager from an agency, who commenced recently on a short-term contract. That person, importantly, is very experienced in aged care and has been providing strong leadership for Hammill House staff, including identifying opportunities for improved services to be provided.

Obviously, there is still more work to do in terms of the recruitment of staff, but I think that is a good first step to be able to address those issues. They are still actively recruiting for additional staff there. I am advised by Yorke and Northern that there is currently one person on the waiting list as of 8 September this year, and no consumer inpatients who are in the Port Pirie hospital are seeking a permanent residential aged-care place in Hammill House. That is also positive news.

Where a patient's care and placement into aged care is a pressing necessity, Yorke and Northern regularly work to support access to an aged-care facility in a location as close as possible to that person's desired location. They have been meeting regularly with the other providers in Port Pirie to facilitate communication and collaboration between all of those services. It is worth noting that those other facilities have unopened beds as well. Obviously, over time we would like to see them being able to open as they address their own workforce issues.

All of this highlights another key measure that the member himself has been a strong advocate for, which is that we need to improve our pipeline of training locally in Port Pirie. I am really delighted that we're pushing ahead with plans to establish the simulator, or what is going to be a real training academy based in Port Pirie, which will enable universities—whether it's the Uni Hub or other universities—to be able to do that clinical simulation, based in Port Pirie, which is going to be critical for training that workforce locally.