Royal Adelaide Hospital

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:38): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Health and Wellbeing about the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: There has been significant public interest and discussion about the design flaws in the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. Can the minister update the council on what steps the government is undertaking to address those design flaws?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:38): I thank the honourable member for her question and appreciate her ongoing interest in the wellbeing of South Australians. The former Labor government's approach to building the new RAH was like a child who designs a house of Lego: not for the world that is but for the way they want the world to be.

We saw that in Labor's plan for the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, because they designed a hospital with two-thirds less outpatient capacity, not because they had models of care that would deliver two-thirds less need for outpatient capacity but because they were hoping that in 10 years the new world might be there. Instead, 10 years later we are still in the same situation: we still need a large amount of outpatient capacity, and Labor has left us a hospital with two-thirds less.

What did that mean for real South Australians in real need? It meant that people with cystic fibrosis, people with lung transplants and people with other forms of respiratory conditions were forced to continue to use a stranded clinic on the east end of North Terrace. Labor built the new RAH. They promised in 2014 that all old RAH services would go to the new RAH, yet a whole range of services, including the TB clinic, the pain unit and the CF clinic, were left behind. There are no plans to transfer the pain unit to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital because the former government broke that promise by transferring that clinic to The Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

I have been working with CALHN management and SA Health since I was appointed as minister; in fact, it was in October or November last year that the Liberal Party indicated its real concern about that clinic being stranded. I note, for the sake of the record, that the Centre Alliance, then SA-Best, during the election campaign indicated that the transfer of the chest clinic was a high priority for that group too. So I was very pleased today to be able to join the Premier at the Royal Adelaide Hospital to announce the relocation of the chest clinic. It will mean that we will be able to have outpatient services provided for people with chronic lung conditions, such as cystic fibrosis, tuberculosis and lung transplants, at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Space has been identified within the RAH and a lease agreement entered into, which ends months of uncertainty for patients and staff and will ensure that the patients of the chest clinic can return to have high quality care on the same site as the RAH. Services will begin as soon as possible, following a fit-out of the space. I understand that's in the order of about a month.

Of course we understand that patients will continue to need care during that transition. There is an additional pharmacist full time at the chest clinic site, there are arrangements in place for patients to get Cabcharge vouchers to travel between the two sites and there are additional administrative and nursing staff who have been engaged.

What I look forward to is not only a co-location of those services but also the opportunity to relinquish those short-term measures that have been put in place to deal with the dislocation. The Marshall Liberal government takes no joy from highlighting the bungles of the former Labor government, but we are delighted when we fix them.