Hospitals, Winter Demand

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:04): My question is for the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Given that winter starts tomorrow, why has the minister still not released a winter demand plan for our hospitals? Hasn't this inaction left our hospitals unprepared?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:04): I thank the honourable member for his question. I really do wonder in which universe the Labor opposition lives. I have been implementing my winter demand strategy for months. We have introduced free flu vaccines for under fives, which started in early May. We stopped the rollout of EPAS, because clinicians told us that the government going ahead with rolling out EPAS on the cusp of winter would have risked a meltdown. We have opened a 12-person discharge lounge at the RAH, which will improve patient flow. Logically, it frees up at least 12 beds. Considering that in terms of patient flow, if that can facilitate patient flow through the balance of the beds, that will have an ongoing impact.

We are looking at other things like improving the discharge of the NDIS patients I was referring to earlier. We have long-stay patients in those beds. If we can work with those patients, which we are doing, that will free up beds. To put it another way, every NDIS client we help to facilitate a discharge for will free up a bed. That is 70 beds that could be available, which would go a long way in our winter demand strategy. This is a winter demand strategy that will continue to evolve. I can assure the house that the department is working diligently on a whole range of initiatives. All I can say is: watch this space.