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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-03-04 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

HOSPITAL CHIEF EXECUTIVES

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:13): Today we heard the news that Dr Rima Staugas, the General Manager of the Women's and Children's Hospital is resigning. This is the third of the major public hospitals in South Australia. She, of course, is not going to renew her contract. She was only appointed in September 2006, so within 18 months she has elected to leave the post. Why would she do that?

The Women's and Children's Hospital has over 100 years of history in the state. This hospital, which is a combination of the Queen Victoria Hospital and the Adelaide Children's Hospital, under extraordinary pressure provides, as best as its staff can, a good service. Let me tell you why. It is because this government has refused to listen to the report prepared by the Hon. Carolyn Pickles, the chair of the board, which of course is about to be removed in the next couple of months under legislation passed in this house. The board recommended in its report that major capital works be done to the hospital to avoid the high risk of staff injury, poor service delivery to children, contamination and infection—and the list goes on.

Yet the government has refused to listen to that, and so we continue to hear of the warlike descriptions made of this hospital. This week I have heard from local mother, Lear Hughes, who lives in the Modbury area. She has a child who has frequently used the services of the Modbury Hospital, but the government's new policy to close obstetrics and paediatric services that require admissions for more than 24 hours means she can no longer use that service. They have to go to the Lyell McEwin or the Women's and Children's Hospital. This is her story. She says:

I have two daughters, aged eight and six years. My eight year old daughter suffers from asthma, and has excellent regular treatment at Modbury Hospital, especially for periods greater than 24 hours. She is treated with a nebuliser for her recovery. When her father took her to the Women's and Children's Hospital last year, nebuliser treatment was not provided, in a circumstance, they claim, where oxygen was not needed. The doctor claimed she simply did not need it.

I requested she be transferred to Modbury, which was authorised, but I was left to transport her in my car, which was parked 10 minutes away, and in cold weather. When we reached Modbury she was placed on a nebuliser under the supervision of the excellent paediatrician at Modbury.

They knew her history, they knew what to do, and they placed her on treatment straightaway. When at the Women's and Children's Hospital she had been admitted to the fourth floor, where two year olds were trying to sleep in caged cots. She states:

My daughter's coughing continued to wake the other children, and other parents suggested that I take her to the bathroom, create some stream with hot water, as they said, 'like other mothers do' to treat their children.

Well, there were not even locks on the rooms in the bathrooms to even do this crude type of administration type of treatment. She raised these concerns about the matter, and received a letter from the minister indicating that she could be transferred.

But this government's new policy means that the daughter could only be treated at Modbury for less than 24 hours and then she would have to be transferred when her time was up. Well, her situation is this. She is 20 minutes drive from the Women's and Children's Hospital. She has to find a further 10 minutes to park the car, usually another 10 minutes to walk to the hospital from wherever she is parked, followed by another two hour wait, on average, at the emergency department, even for an asthma patient.

She can travel to the Mannum Hospital—the Mannum Hospital—in 45 minutes, and can be attended to almost immediately, as the place she visits regularly, her parents live there, and she had made this inquiry. She has also been advised that she can go to Gumeracha Hospital. This is nearly an hour away from her, that she is prepared to travel. She says that she would rather drive into the country and obtain a treatment for her daughter than be forced to have to be re-admitted to the Women's and Children's Hospital. The youngest daughter, she tells me, was misdiagnosed for asthma by the director of the emergency department of the Women's and Children's Hospital.

The situation is quite clear. This hospital is under huge pressure. Even the head of the hospital, the head administrator, isn't sticking around. She's gone. Here is a hospital that has to deliver four and a half thousand babies a year, in a hospital that was built for 3,000. At Modbury there are 700 babies a year that are born, and this hospital, together with the Lyell McEwin, is expected to absorb this without any major restructure or capital works on their hospital. Thank goodness for the McGuinness McDermott Foundation. There is a foundation which is at least raising money, public appeals, to help this government—because no-one else in the government will.

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