Coronavirus

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (14:30): Yes, the minister, towards the end of his discussion in the original answer, said that every hospital—I think he qualified it to say every major hospital or metro hospital, I'm not sure—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Metropolitan.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Metropolitan hospital, I am corrected—will be setting up a COVID-19 clinic. How many patient beds will each hospital clinic provide?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:31): I thank the honourable member for his question because it gives me an opportunity to clarify. The clinic being referred to there is not a clinic as in a ward: it's a clinic as in an SA Pathology clinic, a sample collection facility. I thank the member for the supplementary because it gives me an opportunity to highlight another innovation by SA Pathology. One option is to allow a person to come to a clinic. There have been SA Pathology clinics, even dedicated SA Pathology clinics, for people to come and have a sample tested outside a hospital, but also an initiative of SA Pathology was to have what they call a domiciliary nursing service.

This is a service whereby a nurse goes out to a home or elsewhere and takes the sample. They don't expect the person to come to the clinic or come to the hospital. It's an outreach service. It goes to them, clearly significantly reducing the risk to a clinic-based service or a hospital-based service. My understanding is that we are heading towards 100 people who have been tested that way. Again, I commend the innovation and nimbleness of the public health services, both in pathology and in the communicable diseases branch.