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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-06-05 Daily Xml
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AMBULANCE SERVICES

Mrs PENFOLD (Flinders) (14:35): My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister advise how many of the additional 72 staff announced for the SA Ambulance Service to cope with the anticipated extra call-outs will be allocated to regional areas? In his media release dated 30 May it was announced that the money would fund a massive 96,000 extra call-outs of paramedics over the next four years. Ambulance services in most regional areas are manned by volunteer officers, who are being increasingly stretched as their numbers dwindle, and hospital numbers are going to be reduced.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:35): I thank the member for Flinders for her question because it allows me to highlight the fact that the government announced just last week that in this budget there will be $26 million extra for ambulance services in our state. Those extra funds will do a range of things. They will allow us to employ an extra 70 or so staff, some of whom will be paramedics. It also allows us to purchase additional ambulances, so that there are more ambulances on the road—this is not replacement vehicles but more ambulances—and also additional vehicles which will be used to change the nature of the way ambulance services are delivered in this state.

At the moment, of course, when someone calls an ambulance, an ambulance is sent out with a couple of officers in a very expensive vehicle and, often, the person is not necessarily carried to a hospital because they can be looked after. So a more modern ambulance service, which is what we are heading to, will be able to have a two tier approach, with a clinical service at the phone centre so triaging can occur, and vehicles other than an ambulance can be sent out with paramedics in them to provide assistance in the home and perhaps transfer to somewhere other than a hospital.

So it is a different system of doing business. The British health service works in this way. This will provide us with the extra capacity we need because, as we know, in South Australia as our population ages the demand for acute services is increasing at an enormous rate, and that applies to the ambulance services also. So these additional funds, the $26 million, will help us expand the services that are required right across South Australia. As to the proportion of those funds that will go in particular directions, I cannot give the member a specific answer but I am happy to seek advice for her.

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