Repatriation General Hospital

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:23): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Health some questions about the Repatriation General Hospital at Daw Park.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Colleagues would know that I, on behalf of my own family and, indeed, on behalf of tens of thousands—in fact, I would say hundreds of thousands—of South Australians was always appalled that this government decided to close the campus of the Repatriation General Hospital, rather than actually put money into new capital works upgrades. In fact, for more than a decade, it deliberately ran that hospital down as an excuse to do what we are now hearing the minister say they are doing.

My concerns also are particularly for the staff at the Repat hospital because I am advised by people working at the Repat hospital that there has been an absolute lack of communication throughout the whole process of closing the Repat to the staff. They also tell me that staff members are very unhappy that the Repat hospital is allegedly giving no support or communication to those staff.

In fact, some of those staff were offered packages and others were getting transferred to new hospitals in a different position than they are in now. Some might not even get packages they were offered and have been told that they might have to go to work at the Flinders hospital, and in a case where they had been an orderly at the Repat, they would have to put up with being an employee in the hospitality area. My questions to the minister are:

1. Is the minister satisfied that there was proper communication planning and general dialogue with the staff throughout the procedures to close the Repat?

2. I have been advised and I ask the minister: can the minister confirm that medical equipment, food, stationery, desks, electrical products and furniture have been crushed or thrown out, yet nursing staff are still in need of these particular pieces of equipment? Have they just been crushed and taken to the dump?

3. Can the minister also confirm that they are still transferring patients into the Repat hospital because of the overflow at the Flinders hospital, because the staff are telling me that is the case? Whilst the government has carefully worked on getting pictures in the media of ambulances removing patients from the Repat and taking them to the FMC, etc., the staff tell me that you have not organised to get photographs of the ambulances coming back the other way bringing overflow patients from the Flinders back into the Repat.

4. Is it true that the government has done a dirty little deal on the side and that they are going to open sections of the Repat to offset the problems they have with overflow until after the election in March next year?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse) (15:26): I have acknowledged on more than one occasion, and I think it is probably pertinent in the context of this question to acknowledge it again, that moving off the Repat site has been a difficult undertaking. This has been a difficult decision to make. It is a decision that the government made some time ago and it has received a lot of criticism for it. On one level, that is human. This site has delivered an outstanding service for South Australians for a long period of time and a lot of dedicated men and women have worked within the Repat site and honoured its legacy by delivering high-quality public health care there.

As I stated previously, lots of those facilities and lots of the physical infrastructure was old, run-down and tired, and it only takes a quick walk through that facility to realise that it is no longer purpose-built or fit for purpose, particularly in regard to sections like Ward 17, for instance, where the staff there do an amazing job in helping out those service men and women who deserve our support. Since that facility was first built, we know that it is run-down and is not fit for purpose and we have now built a modern facility that is designed to meet the model of care and the needs of today, and that undoubtedly assists those people who get access to those services.

We are very grateful that the majority of staff have moved across to other facilities and we anticipate that their culture and their commitment will continue in those new facilities and that is a great result for South Australians, particularly those people in the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network area.