Premature Babies

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (15:21): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister update the house on services and support for premature babies in South Australia?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:21): I thank the honourable member for his question. Last week, it was my privilege to launch an exciting initiative for South Australian mothers and babies. South Australia's most vulnerable babies from across the state will now have access to pasteurised donor breastmilk through a new partnership between SA Health and the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. This initiative will see our community's smallest babies having access to pasteurised milk delivered straight to the neonatal nursery. Supporting families and their babies at such a critical time will strengthen our community as a whole.

The Marshall Liberal government is committed to ensuring that South Australian babies get the best possible start in life. The Women's and Children's Hospital and the Flinders Medical Centre will become the first neonatal nurseries in the country to utilise the milk bank by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, providing pasteurised donor breastmilk to preterm babies in their care.

The milk bank will mean neonatal nurseries will be able to order pasteurised breastmilk on demand, just as they currently do for blood. The milk bank will screen donors, collect, process and test the donated breastmilk, then track and distribute this precious resource. The Red Cross advised me that this is a unique model in Australia, that the services that do exist in Australia are institution-based.

I believe that the program that has been developed between SA Health and Red Cross—and I understand a similar program has been established in New South Wales—gives us the opportunity not only to have milk supplied within individual hospitals but also to share across the network and, perhaps even more importantly, to tap into the extraordinary expertise within the Red Cross.

The Red Cross is able to apply leading-edge research, skills and expertise to human milk banking to potentially improve the health outcomes of so many at-risk babies. They not only have the expertise, they also have the trust. The people of South Australia, and the people of Australia, rely on the Red Cross and trust the Red Cross to ensure that donated products are safe.

I look forward to seeing this service grow. When I was present at the launch, it was particularly impressive how excited the clinicians were and the opportunities that they saw to give preterm babies a better chance in life. There was already talk about trying to expand the reach of the milk bank into Lyell McEwin. I look forward to the lives that will be saved through this initiative and seeing the service grow and spread.