Hospital Beds

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (14:29): Supplementary arising from the answer: can the minister explain in detail the difference, as he has outlined in his answer, between beds closed on stand-by and beds being closed?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:29): My memory is not always best at three years' distance, but I suspect that the quote the honourable member was referring to was a quote in relation to the closure of the Repat. That's a closure. When you have 200 beds—I think there are about 240 beds at the Repat—and when the former government sold it off for apartments, cafes and restaurants, I can assure you they were closed. What this government is doing is putting beds on stand-by, which was standard practice on weekends, standard practice at Christmas and New Year for years past and will be for years into the future, because you cannot run a hospital effectively at 100 per cent capacity. Part of the process of eliminating ramping is making sure that we have beds on stand-by when we need them.