Women's and Children's Hospital

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (14:54): Supplementary question arising from the answer.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: In the plans for the new Women's and Children's Hospital, what emergency management procedures and anti-terrorism procedures were considered with the co-location of two major hospitals?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:54): I can't wait to post that for the Women's and Children's clinicians. I went there this morning and I met with a family. Only last weekend, the mother delivered her baby with great joy at the Women's and Children's Hospital, very soon after she started significant bleeding, so severe that she needed to be retrieved to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. The very clear message from the clinicians is: this is a risk that we should not have to cope with. This is a risk to women; it's a risk to children.

Your former government's commitment to strand the children's hospital at North Adelaide for some indeterminate future and to separate mothers and babies in that very important phase was a complete abandonment of quality care. I can assure you that when we can get the Women's and Children's Hospital co-located with the Royal Adelaide Hospital, completely smashing Labor's plans to have a stranded, orphaned children's hospital at North Adelaide, babies, children and adolescents will be able to get medical retrieval to the site of their care.

The former Labor government was willing to tolerate for an indeterminate future that the babies, children and young people of South Australia would have to be taken to and from the children's hospital, stranded at North Adelaide, when the helipad is at the co-located hospital. I can assure the Leader of the Opposition that in terms of emergency response, particularly for babies, children and young people, our decision is a very good one.