Royal Adelaide Hospital

The Hon. S.G. WADE (15:57): I would like to address today some of the challenges that the South Australian community faces as the government continues its botched management of the rollout of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. I would like to focus on two particular points: first of all, the government's claims that the new Royal Adelaide Hospital provides more beds, and secondly, the fact that the government is understating the challenge of the ramp-down that we face during this winter. Yesterday, on ABC radio 891, minister Snelling was asked by Matt Abraham:

How many beds will the new Royal Adelaide open with on 5 September?

He said:

Three hundred initially, but very, very quickly it will ramp up to its capacity of, we expect, probably around 650 beds, but of course depending on that is very much driven by demand.

Later on, he went on to say that:

The new capacity is 700 overnight beds, 100 day beds. A bit over 600 beds is how many beds we have at the existing Royal Adelaide and we expect a similar capacity at the new Royal Adelaide, or a similar usage should I say.

David Bevan asked:

How long after you open the hospital can you guarantee there will be 700 overnight beds and 100 day beds?

The minister responded:

We will have 700 beds available within weeks of us opening the new hospital. I'm not saying they will be all used, but if we need them we will have them available.

That statement, I believe, is fundamentally misleading. In March this year, in a series of presentations to front-line staff, the then interim chief executive of the Central Adelaide Local Health Network, Mr Len Richards, disclosed that the average staffed planned use at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital will be 609 beds. That is 75 beds below the current capacity of the Royal Adelaide Hospital. As we speak, and for at least the 12 months that I can recall, the bed capacity of the Royal Adelaide Hospital has been 684 beds. So, the government is planning an average use of 609 beds in the new hospital. Mr Richards said that SA Health will be able to flex down to 549 overnight beds when demand is low and flex up to 656 beds at times of high demand.

Having mentioned that figure of the high demand peak of 656 beds, I would just like to point out to the council that, consistently this week, the total occupancy of the Royal Adelaide Hospital has been 750 beds. So, the government is planning to have a hospital with a maximum number of overnight beds available in the new hospital that is 21 fewer than the current capacity and also significantly below the current occupancy of the hospital.

The presentation by Mr Richards, which was delivered in the middle of March, actually said that the allocated physical capacity of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital will be 663 and that another 40 beds were designated as future growth. I presume that means that they are not equipped and staffed; it indicates future growth. In that context, I think it is fundamentally misleading for the government to say that they have 700 beds available.

In terms of the challenge of the ramp-down during this winter period, the government says in its SA Health online propaganda that the move to the new hospital will see a ramp-down from 600 beds to 300 beds. That, I believe, is a fundamental understatement of the challenge before us. Let's remember that, at 9am this morning, there were 790 patients at the RAH. That is 190 more patients than the claimed bed count at the RAH and that is 127 more patients than the maximum number of overnight beds that will be available at the new hospital in terms of planned use for high demand.

I am very concerned that the government is not being honest with the people of South Australia about what the new hospital will deliver. I am concerned that they are understating the challenge of the move that is before us, and I believe that they are breaching the commitments they made to the community of South Australia and particularly to the health professional organisations to not close beds until the demand for those beds had demonstrably been removed.