Regional Health Services

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (15:09): Thank you for the answer. Could the minister advise how many FTEs will be cut from regional health across South Australia?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:09): The Labor Party handed on the health system in a chronic case of mismanagement. They sorely neglected the people of country South Australia. In particular, they neglected the capital works in country South Australia. This government, in contrast, has committed $140 million over a decade to fix the country health infrastructure problems, and we are overdelivering in the early years.

We are delighted with the partnership that we have established with the federal government, which has meant that we have been able to invest in a whole series of country facilities, such as, for example, the South Coast hospital, which will see a new emergency department. Only yesterday, I was at the Mount Barker hospital, being able to mark the opening of the renal services there, which means that people from the Mount Barker area and the Adelaide Hills area will no longer need to head east to Murray Bridge or west to Adelaide to get renal services. That is under the shadow of further commitments from the Morrison Liberal government to invest in the facility at Mount Barker.

In terms of our services going forward, I am very keen to work with the country health boards to deliver efficient and effective services across country South Australia. I can assure you that there is palpable excitement in country South Australia that at last they have been able to turn back the tide of Labor's chronic socialist centralisation of health.

They have a government now that has actually committed to partner with them, because fundamentally country services operate differently to city services. So many of them are dependent on partnerships with general practices, with the country PHNs, with the RFDS. It is all about partnerships in the country, so we are delighted to be able to work with a network of six country boards, each of them working with local governance and local management, partnering with local consumers and local clinicians to deliver better outcomes. The former Labor government completely mismanaged country health. We are looking forward to delivering real positive change.