House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-11-15 Daily Xml

Contents

MODBURY HOSPITAL

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:00): My question again is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister assure the house that there will be no loss of accreditation of the Modbury Hospital for the training of surgeons? On 2 October, a consulting surgeon at Modbury Hospital wrote to the minister advising 'that there will be a number of significant consequences' as a result of the more major and complex surgery being shifted to other hospitals, including resignation of surgical consulting staff, adverse effect on the training of medical students and loss of accreditation.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (15:00): The Health Care Plan that the government is implementing in health in South Australia has made a number of changes across our hospital system. Some of them are in train and some will occur in the future. I have to say that the changes at Modbury are relatively minor. They principally deal with obstetrics and longer stay paediatric patients, which are the minority of patients dealt with at the hospital.

The issue to do with training and accreditation is a matter of ongoing discussion across the system, particularly for training. In health in South Australia, we are moving to have a multisited training system, rather than individual doctors being trained in only one workplace. Typically, in the future, we would see trainee doctors spend some time in a variety of workplaces, which could include GP surgeries, GP Plus health care centres, a hospital such as Modbury and a hospital such as the RAH. All these issues need to be worked through and they are being worked through. I am very confident that we will be able to sort out any of the problems that any individual surgeon sees.