Modbury Hospital

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (15:04): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Health and Wellbeing.

Leave granted.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: On Tuesday, the Minister for Health and Wellbeing informed the chamber that he had received advice from his department that raised concerns for patient safety with the Liberal Party policy of the establishment of a stand-alone high dependency unit at Modbury Hospital without an associated intensive care unit. I thank the minister for informing the chamber of that advice. Can he outline the details of that departmental advice for the benefit of this chamber?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:05): As my honourable colleague the Minister for Human Services would remind me, always watch in a question from the Leader of the Opposition. I think the honourable minister refers to it as 'verballing'. That is not a quote from what I said in Hansard on Tuesday. The key point, to go straight to the policy and avoid the petty politics that the minister so much enjoys—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Sorry, the former, whatever he is.

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: The failed former minister.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: The failed former minister, and hopes to be one day a worthy Leader of the Opposition. The key point in relation to the Liberal Party plan for Modbury, I have said repeatedly in this chamber, is not that we are going to open an HDU tomorrow. What we are committed to is a board in the north-eastern suburbs that is skills based, engages the community and engages the clinicians. Our policy on Modbury specifically says that board will look at the service mix right across the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network and in that context look at increasing the complexity of surgery at the Modbury site, so that Modbury people can once again get their health services in their area.

The people of the north-east, as I have already alluded to earlier in my comments today, on 17 March showed their disgust for a Labor Party that it had been relying on year in, year out to provide basic services like education and health, and yet had it, through the Transforming Health franchise, downgrade three emergency departments, including their own—Modbury—and close three hospitals and ask them to travel further to get not only emergency care but the sort of services that they had come to expect from their community hospital.

As I was saying earlier to members in relation to the question asked of me by the Hon. John Dawkins, this government listened in opposition; we are listening in government too. We listened to the people of the north-east and we are committed to an HDU at the Modbury Hospital site and going forward, in the context of an increase in the complexity of surgery, and that surgical mix will be determined over the coming months. Like my response to the member for Lee, no, I am not going to terminate the contract with the Repat one day and give the artist's impression the next. I am not going to apologise for taking time to engage the community in relation to their hospital and their services.

As the complexity of surgery increases, as we install an HDU, we will be able to not only increase the level of complex surgery available there but also increase the range of people with complex and chronic conditions who will be able to access the range of services that are already there.

The Labor Party somehow seems to be incredulous of the idea that you could actually provide critical care at Modbury Hospital. Let's remember that when the former Healthscope organisation managed the Modbury Hospital, it had an ICU. In fact, it was only in March 2016 that this opposition, then government, actually closed the HDU. If it is so incredible that you could maintain an HDU at Modbury Hospital, you have to ask: why did they do it up until March 2016?

It was interesting that in relation to this issue, I thought that people had stopped reading Legislative Council after my mother died, but there was a Modbury clinician who contacted me after one of my contributions last week and said, 'Thanks for standing up for Modbury. Could I also point out that the Western Hospital, a private hospital in the western suburbs, has an HDU.'

The failed former Labor government, now sitting on the opposition benches, seems to want to have a campaign to make sure that the people of the north-east don't have what they had up until 2016. They want to make sure that the critical care services at the northern hospitals, which they actually slashed almost in half—and they want to deny the people of the north-east the opportunity to have an HDU.

I think Burnside has an HDU. I am told there is an HDU at Western Hospital, but I haven't actually confirmed that. There are critical care services maintained right across the hospital network, they were maintained at Modbury up until 2016, but the opposition has already started its campaign for the 2022 election, They are going to fight to make sure that the people of the north-east continue to have half as many critical care beds as they did before Transforming Health; they are going to fight to make sure the people of the north-east don't get a high dependency unit.