Royal Adelaide Hospital

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (14:26): Supplementary: the minister said that, when he was advised that the situation was serious enough, as a precautionary measure further surgeries would be cancelled. Did he then not consider it also a useful precautionary measure to advise the public?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:26): It is an interesting point as to who needs to know and when. The fact of the matter is that here we have a trend in infections, with an investigation yet to identify a cause. The nature of health alerts are incredibly broad. I mentioned earlier some of the health alerts that go out, and some would hardly rate a mention in terms of awareness within the community. For example, since I have been minister I think there have been three or four food-related recalls, and it is important, considering that that material goes far and wide, that also the alert goes far and wide.

But, let's remember what we are talking about here. We are talking about a procedure which, to be frank, is rarer than I thought. If you had asked me how many hip and knee replacements we would have done at the Royal Adelaide Hospital since September, I would have been surprised that it was only 116. Be that as it may, 116 procedures have been done. This is a very discrete patient group; this is not a situation where we are concerned about somebody picking up a piece of pizza that is not fit for human consumption and our needing to broadcast it. These people are coming through our door—we don't need to do the surgery at that place if we choose not to, and that's exactly what the clinicians have done.

Considering that this is an investigation of a trend in infections, that a discrete patient group was involved and that steps were being taken to prevent further infections, I have no reason to question the decisions that the clinicians have made.