Viral Respiratory Disease Pandemic Response Plan

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (14:57): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Health and Wellbeing regarding public health.

Leave granted.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: The minister, earlier in question time, outlined some of the actions under the SA Health Viral Respiratory Disease Pandemic Response Plan, including influenza, COVID-19, SARS and MERS. It is otherwise known as the VRDPR plan. The minister in particular spoke about whether or not hospitals had standard operating procedures for personal protective equipment and whether these are plans that were already in place or whether these are specific plans made under the VRDPR.

My question to the minister is: under the Viral Respiratory Disease Pandemic Response Plan, are personal protective equipment standard operating procedures required amongst the whole of the health system, or is it local health networks or individual hospitals that require these new standard operating procedures? Secondly, are there triggers under the plan the minister referred to in relation to public transport; that is, the partial closure or entire shutdown of public transport under SA Health's Viral Respiratory Disease Pandemic Response Plan?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:59): On page 23 of the South Australian Viral Respiratory Disease Pandemic Response Plan, it is made clear that LHNs are responsible for developing a standard operating procedure for PPE use and distribution. The issue I was highlighting earlier is that any response plan they have for pandemics may not necessarily have PPE in it. Let's be clear: you need PPE even outside of the context of a pandemic. Normal surgical operations in particular are very resource intensive in relation to PPE.

The honourable member asks: does that mean that there would be specific PPE plans for individual hospitals? That would be a matter for each individual LHN. I can't actually recall an LHN which only has one hospital in it. Some of our country LHNs would have a number of hospitals within them, often quite different entities, so I wouldn't be surprised if the PPE policies were if not differentiated between the units within the LHN perhaps they might even be separate procedures. I would be interested to see.