Pelvic Pain Clinics

Ms PRATT (Frome) (14:58): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. How many pelvic pain clinics do we have in South Australia and when will that service increase? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms PRATT: On radio last week, the director of the Kadina Pelvic Pain Clinic said: 'It's a shame South Australia will not receive another service in the state.' Of the 20 recommendations from this parliament's endometriosis committee accepted by the minister, number 3 states that the state and commonwealth governments will work together to establish more health endometriosis and chronic pain clinics.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:59): Thank you. I have to say that I am disappointed that the federal government, as part of its program of these clinics across the country, announced recently a new batch of clinics that will operate didn't include South Australia on the list of those clinics. I had advocated to Minister Butler to include another clinic in specifically the area based on the advice we had from our health planners, which was that we wanted to see one in the northern suburbs of Adelaide to meet significant need in that growing community. We will continue to keep advocating for additional federal pelvic pain clinics. The ones that we have currently at Kadina and Glenelg are appreciated but we know that there is significant need out there for those as well.

At the same time, we are implementing the recommendations from that select committee of the parliament, and I really want to thank the member for Waite for her work on this area of public policy and for her strong advocacy, and also for speaking bravely about her lived experience in this area. She is being very persistent in terms of making sure that the pressure is on our officials to make sure that those recommendations are implemented. There is a working group that is being lead by the chief executive officer of the Women's and Children's Health Network, on behalf of all of SA Health, to work through all of those recommendations to be implemented.

Some of those recommendations sit outside SA Health and recently, the Minister for Women and the member for Waite and I were part of a broader discussion that happened with a number of government and non-government partners about how we can make sure that we are addressing pelvic pain issues in the workplace. This is an area not just for government but for our community and our economy as a whole. We will keep working through those recommendations and we will also keep advocating for our fair share of those federal funds for those federally funded primary care clinics.