Southern Adelaide Local Health Network

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:49): As a supplementary question: so the minister is therefore suggesting that with the 20 beds at Ward RV and the 10 beds at Flinders Private there are 30 beds from the Repat that are being either retained at the Repat or leased from the private sector. Doesn't this mean that the government has failed to achieve the efficiencies that it said it would achieve before it closed the Repat, and that this is a politically driven decision, not an outcome of efficiencies?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse) (14:49): I am not too sure what the honourable member is getting at. The government's stated policy objective when it comes to Transforming Health, including in and around the Repat, has always been one thing first and foremost, and that is improving our capacity to deliver high-quality public services in public hospitals that relate to public health care. That has always been our first and foremost objective, and that is what is being realised.

The government has invested an extraordinary amount of money right across our health system in South Australia, the flagship of which is an investment in excess of $2 billion—which was, of course, opposed by members opposite—to make sure we have a world's best practice hospital available to South Australians. However, that is only part of the story. We are a government that is also committed to investing in our suburban facilities.

We have $52 million in the pipeline for doubling the emergency department at the Lyell McEwin Hospital, we have invested over $200 million in upgrading the Flinders Medical Centre, and over a quarter of a billion dollars is being invested at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital. We are doing all this because we want to make sure we are providing outstanding quality healthcare services in state-of-the-art facilities. That has been our objective.

Of course we would like to achieve efficiencies in undertaking that exercise, but our decision in and around the Repat is making sure that we improve the services we provide for residents who rely upon it in and around the southern suburbs. That is what we are committed to delivering.