COVID-19 Hospital Response

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:26): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Health and Wellbeing a question about COVID-19 hospital transfers.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: As of noon today, in New South Wales another 1,222 new COVID cases and nine further deaths have been reported. That brings the total number of current active cases in that jurisdiction to 25,747, or thereabouts. According to NSW Health statistics, 1,143 of those people are in hospital, including 189 in ICU with 75 on ventilators.

In Victoria, there were, as I understand it, another 246 cases today, bringing the total of that jurisdiction to 1,786, with 140 in hospital, 30 of which are in ICU and 14 on ventilators. Obviously, the public hospitals in both jurisdictions are under incredible and increasing pressure, which medical experts warn will worsen as the pandemic continues to spread in those jurisdictions.

My questions to the minister are: has the government been approached by New South Wales and/or Victoria to determine if patients in those states can be transferred to South Australia, should the hospitals become overloaded or run out of ICU beds? If so, when and where have those discussions been held, and have any contingency plans been established for when those hospitals reach capacity? Lastly, is the minister aware of any discussions that have taken place at the national level in relation to the same issues that I have outlined?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:28): I thank the honourable member for her question and share her concern at the situation in New South Wales. It is very distressing to see fellow Australians struggling at such a significant level with the COVID pandemic.

Right through this pandemic, SA Health and the Marshall Liberal government have had a key operational principle that, wherever possible, we want to maintain the normal medical retrieval patterns of our partners; for example, it is common practice for us to receive people from Broken Hill, north-west Victoria and the Northern Territory when they need higher levels of care. There was actually a COVID-positive case at Broken Hill that was brought into South Australia, I suspect it was about two weeks ago, and that was, if you like, part of our commitment to maintain stable medical referral patterns during this pandemic.

It is also not uncommon for patients to be transferred interstate for the purpose of essential specialist care or treatment, and South Australia will always provide health assistance to other states where there is a need and where we are able. Right from the beginning of this pandemic, SA Health and health authorities right around Australia have been doing pandemic plans, and they have always included surge capacity in terms of demand for ICU beds and ventilators.

Those plans are reviewed from time to time and, most significantly, in the context of the real-world experience. What we learnt from the first Victorian wave was that the biggest constraint on having a large number of ICU beds and ventilators is having a workforce that can safely operate the equipment. So those plans have been revised from time to time through the pandemic and there is certainly work being done at the interjurisdictional level in terms of what capacity Australia needs and each of the jurisdictions need.

I think it's important to appreciate that in the immediate future we've got two significantly different periods. We've got the period up until the vaccination target, where we've got three jurisdictions in an outbreak and we need to be ready for the scenarios that face our state in the context of, if you like, the not fully vaccinated status of our population. Then, secondly, once Australia reaches the 80 per cent vaccination rate and national cabinet considers it's appropriate to move to the next phase of the road map, there will be challenges on the health system as, if you like, we learn to live with COVID. So there are two quite different periods of challenge.

I do want to yet again thank the hardworking staff of SA Health and its partners such as the Ambulance Service, the private hospitals, SA Pathology, private pathology firms and the like. This pandemic has been with us now for 18 months. Those staff have worked tirelessly. I think it is important to appreciate that the fact that we haven't had outbreaks to the extent of some of the other states and territories, and have certainly had less than some of our overseas comparable jurisdictions, does not mean that our staff haven't been working very hard. When you've got 24/7 COVID testing clinics, when you've got—

The PRESIDENT: The minister should bring his answer to a conclusion.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I did think these were important matters to address in response to the honourable member, but I will just indicate that the South Australian COVID situation is the result not only of the hard work of the South Australian community but the tireless work of thousands of health personnel.