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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-07-24 Daily Xml
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COUNTRY HEALTH CARE PLAN

Mrs PENFOLD (Flinders) (12:25): I move:

That this house condemns the Rann government for implementing the Country Health Care Plan and not committing to a regional impact statement to assess the effects on communities where hospitals are to be downgraded.

Nowhere is this government's shallowness more clearly exposed than in this state's Country Health Care Plan. Had the government and its health minister followed its own published rules of what it claims it will do, a regional impact statement would have identified the injustices, inequities and outright stupidity of this plan before it had done so much damage to the community's morale. I have even had a threat of suicide as a result of it. One would hope that, after doing a regional impact plan, the minister would have had the commonsense to ditch the plan immediately, but there is no indication to date that there is that much commonsense among the government and its ministers, and the plan is still there with the ultimate goal of very much downgrading hospitals within the next 10 years.

'Sophistry' is described as a subtle, tricky, clever but false method of reasoning. It is what this government is good at. The setting up of a task force to go around the state now at taxpayers' expense ostensibly to listen to the people is a case in point. Nowhere has the minister, or anyone in the government, said that this will change anything. Some aspects of the original plan may be delayed, according to statements by the minister, but the outcome is still the same. It gives a false premise on which to base discussion and dialogue as any consultation really becomes irrelevant: it is only for show.

This is backed up by the CEO of Country Health SA, George Beltchev, who, on talkback radio on 7 July 2008 said:

[The task force] will work with local communities side by side and go through a very detailed and objective process looking at defining what services should be provided at each of what are called GP Plus emergency hospitals.

Nothing there about changing the original plan! The Minister for Health is very sensitive about people looking beyond the hype to the facts. Our Liberal leader said that the Nationals have deserted country people by signing off on the Country Health Care Plan. He said that regional South Australia is the state's engine room and that it is disappointing that the government and the Nationals cannot see that. Our leader further said:

When you look at where the wealth of this economy comes from, it's increasingly coming from aquaculture, from the wine industry, and now of course Mr Rann is out there talking up mining. All of it's in the country and yet the response is to take the benefits of that economic growth but they are not reinvested back into country communities. Now we think that's wrong.

A fired-up health minister reacted angrily, claiming that, 'We are going to build up services in the country so people have access to more health care services not less.' Remember the definition of 'sophistry': a subtle, tricky, clever but false method of reasoning. Unfortunately for the minister and his colleagues, country people are not so easily hoodwinked. Passive recruitment of doctors by this government on the excuse that they are in private practice is just not good enough. Country people want active recruitment of the doctors for our regional hospitals, and also for all the health workers who support them and the wonderful service they give. Passive recruitment is not good enough, minister.

The Nationals are going around pretending that they are representing country interests and that they are concerned about the country. Let us look at the facts. The National Party member in this house is the Minister for Regional Development (a Labor minister in the Labor government) who has wholeheartedly embraced the Country Health Care Plan. Another National, in the form of Mr Blacker, is announced as the head of the task force. He is also head of the Regional Community Council which meets regularly, we are told, with the Premier. They should have already had a say about this plan, but where were they when our hospitals were being put at risk?

It is no surprise that Mr Blacker supports his fellow National member, after all the Nationals are hanging on to their political power by their fingernails, and having him as head of the task force gives the member for Chaffey some political underpinning. It is an indication that the honourable member for Chaffey is feeling vulnerable and lonely. Next, the SA National Party leader jumped on the bandwagon to tell us what a wonderful thing the downgrading of country hospitals is for us—no surprise there. It seems that the Nationals are as good as Labor in using sophistry to cloak their actions that are so detrimental and negative for rural and regional South Australia.

The Nationals' leader is a relative newcomer to this state and has no understanding of the sacrifices that districts have made to establish their local hospitals that are now threatened by this party's collusion with Labor. He has little knowledge of the premature deaths due to having no accessible medical services that strengthen the resolve and activity of country people to provide themselves with a cloak of safety in a resident GP and a hospital. Daphne Freeman, in a letter, wrote:

Labor was closing country hospitals when it was last in office. This was a policy the Liberals inherited when elected in 1993 which was quickly rejected. Now Labor, with the support of the Nationals, is at it again. Berri is one of the proposed regional hospitals and suddenly Health Minister John Hill has found a Berri resident who recalls a supposedly Liberal secret plan to support his proposals. Good try, Mr Hill, but actions speak louder than words.

There is not, and never has been, a Liberal plan to close country hospitals.

Let's look at what a regional impact statement would have found if one had been done. The minister stated that most people will be no more than an hour from a regional hospital. That may be the case in the city, although one wonders if those living at Victor Harbor and the south coast centres will consider a drive to the city when needing medical attention as an improvement on what they have now. Mr Chambers of Cummins said:

The recent emphasis on the necessity of heart attack victims having treatment within the first hour and a half is about the amount of time to get an ambulance manned and driven 70 kms, then you promise treatment in a further 90 minutes at a regional super hospital. Not too bad, everything went according to plan but unfortunately the patient died in the meantime. Just another poor bugger dying because he was silly enough to live in a rural area. It is an indisputable fact that people living in rural areas have more premature deaths than city folk due to the distances and time spent in travelling.

South Australians are dismissive of Victoria—just look at the advertisement inviting people to come to South Australia—yet Victoria has a totally different approach to the delivery of primary health care in rural and regional parts of the state compared with South Australia's Labor/National government. Leon Byner on ABC Radio on 9 July 2008 said:

...you might be aware of a place on the border of South Australia and Victoria...Nhill is a town of about 2,000 people...The Victorian Government a little time back actually put in several million dollars to upgrade facilities...at the hospital...didn't go to the people of the Victorian region and say Nhill is not being used very much...let's put more resources at say, Horsham. Now across the border at a place in the Riverland called Loxton where you've got four times the population we've got a State Government that says, 'well, look, we need to have the hospitals in the major centres so we really don't want to spend money on most hospitals...'...a really interesting difference between the way we do business in South Australia in regional health and the way the Victorians are...you've got to ask the question, why?

The health minister claims that Labor's plan will improve health services. A regional impact statement would have determined the falsity of that belief. Mrs Doris Wedd, in a letter dated 7 July 2008 while sitting at the bedside of her son Peter, aged 42, who was on life support, wrote:

Peter played table tennis as usual on Thursday night May 22...by Friday evening after collapsing at home, family members were called urgently to assist in getting Peter to hospital...The doctor and staff on call at the Cummins Hospital did everything possible to assist Peter...with his deteriorating condition soon realised the need to get him to specialised help in Adelaide...via the Royal Flying Doctor Service...Peter arrived in the Intensive Care Unit of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in the early hours of Saturday 24 May.

Doctors prepared the family for the worst on several occasions however after 6 weeks he is still with us all be it in an extremely fragile position...if on the night of May 23 we had had to wait for an ambulance to convey Peter to Port Lincoln, we have been told he would not have made it. There are many other towns further away from Port Lincoln and Cummins...and it is my belief that people will die in the event of emergencies such as ours.

A regional impact statement would have determined the disincentives that the Country Health Plan throws up for people to live and work in rural regional South Australia. As one small business operator wrote:

When interviewing prospective employees, the main things young family chaps ask about is what our school is like and is there a hospital and health services for my family? Without these services, it is very difficult to attract employees to the country towns and the loss of these services has a domino effect right through the community...causing the town to decline significantly.

It is readily acknowledged that men are generally reluctant to seek medical advice. Greater distances coupled with unfamiliar personnel and strange surroundings will inevitably mean men would be waiting until an illness was well advanced before seeking medical attention. This is another point that a regional impact statement would have picked up.

The difficulty that volunteer ambulance services have in attracting recruits would have been well documented by a regional impact statement. Volunteers now are dropping out because they cannot afford the time off work just to transport patients from one hospital to another. The state's health plan depends on volunteer ambulance services, however those who voted for the plan have no concept of how those volunteers operate, the problems that they face and the sacrifices that they make, whether self-employed or employees.

The nuts and bolts of primary health care have been totally ignored in the presentation of the plan. Prescriptions for medicines are easily obtained by those who live in urban areas. Consider for a moment the cost and struggle in travelling 240 kilometres or more just to get a prescription; an additional point that a regional impact statement would have added to its long list of disadvantages that the Labor/National health care plan places upon country people. I wonder if it will be possible to find out how much the government has spent on its advertising campaign trying to tell us that the Country Health Plan is a great piece of legislation? Vivonne Rusden of Ungarra, stated in a letter:

The arrogance of "We've joined the dots" is breathtaking. My long and considerable experience with public and private entities is that we do not even know where the dots are. This fact sheet is full of motherhood statements, assertions and future promises. It is very short on substance. How do you debate a mirage?...city-based policy makers ignore the impact of...

isolation, distance, low population base, poor or non-existent infrastructure and the extra human and financial cost of implementing rules and regulations that have little relevance to rural communities. She states further:

Instead, your plan may be one more nail in our healthy rural lifestyle coffin. What will you city folk do when there is no flour for your bread?

Murray and Gail Wiseman of Lock put it more succinctly:

No amount of government rhetoric, advertising in TV and press, or many-paged (statistically inaccurate at times) Health Care Plans will alter the fact that rural medical services will be wound down to the detriment and despair of rural communities.

John Dickinson of Port Lincoln picked up on social justice among many other points when he said that, 'It is not merely a health matter it is also a social issue.'

The current lack of funding and shortage of staff in the current health system do not augur well for the future of health in this state, even before the Labor/National emasculation of country health. Alison Barnett of Port Lincoln brought that out clearly when she was prompted to write to the health minister regarding her nephew, aged 34, who is currently undergoing renal dialysis at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Mrs Barnett said:

He was being dialysed in Port Lincoln prior to undergoing a kidney transplant, his third, in November 2006. Unfortunately this transplant, like the previous ones, was unsuccessful. Because of his treatment being carried out in Adelaide, his place on the Port Lincoln dialysis roster was lost. Over 18 months have now passed and Andrew remains in purgatory, receiving dialysis three days a week and living in temporary accommodation in the old nurses quarters at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. His accommodation consists merely of a single room, with a hospital bed and a chair. No creature comforts at all.

An example of social injustice.

The dialysis unit at the Port Lincoln Hospital was established through the fundraising efforts of the Port Lincoln people, who wanted this facility in Port Lincoln instead of having to relocate permanently to Adelaide, away from family and friends and the support that these give. A matter of great social justice. One of the prime movers was the late Natalie Bruza, an Aboriginal dialysis patient, whose courage, tenacity and care for others, despite her own health problems, was inspiring and an inspiration that will live for ever in the hearts of those who were fortunate enough to know her, which I did.

A regional impact statement would have picked up on these needs in the current delivery of health in this state and the many ways in which deficiencies will not be overcome by the state Country Health Care Plan. I ask the minister to drop his policy, and develop one that supports the country people of South Australia and its regions.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (12:40): I have pleasure in supporting the motion of the member for Flinders. It is perhaps no better explained than in the letter of the week in this week's Stock Journal, the headline of which is: 'Please explain 'death of our community', Mr Hill'. It states:

...Given that Health Minister John Hills seems hell-bent on downgrading the Kimba Hospital, it is only appropriate that he explains to our community why he is happy to orchestrate the death of our district.

Our community is incredibly resilient and has survived drought, other natural disasters and personal tragedies.

One of the shining attractions of people choosing to work and retire in Kimba has been the quality of our health care.

It is not appropriate for our residents to have to travel to Cleve...or anywhere else for more than an overnight stay when they have been and could still be treated at Kimba, not now nor anytime in the future.

Further, why are you trying to spin the fact [Mr Hill] that most country people will be no more than 90 minutes from a country general hospital as a good thing? How many city residents have to travel for that length of time?

It is totally unacceptable for anyone to have travel times of that magnitude.

I can think of no good reason for the Kimba Hospital to be downgraded and would hope that you have the courage to come to Kimba to defend the indefensible.

John Schaefer,

Mayor, Kimba District Council

I think that sums up in pretty good words how country people feel about getting dudded by this Country Health Care Plan.

I speak from experience on this issue. I was chairman of the Hills Mallee Southern Regional Health Board for eight years, and prior to that I was chairman of the local hospital board on Kangaroo Island. Therefore, I am not speaking from the top of my head about this; I am speaking with a bit of knowledge and understanding, which is something that, clearly, the Rann Labor/National Party government and minister John Hill do not have. They do not even want to think about it. They do not want to listen to what people have to say. Sure, the Minister for Health has been running around the countryside listening now, but it is all a bit too late for a lot of it.

Country people have been totally dudded over this issue and stand to lose an incredible amount of health care that they have had for generations if these changes come about. You only have to listen to people such as Dr Peter Rischbieth, Dr Clive Fowler or Dr Peter Joyner—and the list goes on of doctors around rural South Australia—who know what they are talking about; they are the professionals. They are absolutely pooh-poohing this thing. They are standing up for their communities. In many cases, they are doctors who have lived and worked in those communities for decades, and they are treated as gods in their communities, because they basically are gods. They keep people alive, they keep them well, they look after their health, and, for the life of them, they cannot understand why this callous Rann Labor/National Party government is absolutely dudding country health.

Here we have the members for Chaffey and Mount Gambier sitting in cabinet signing the death warrant for country health. The absolute irony of it is that the good people of Loxton presented a petition through their local member in this house a day or so ago, and you could clearly see from the expression on the member for Chaffey's face that she was intensely embarrassed about it. She has not had a good week; she has been embarrassed by a few other things as well. That will probably keep going.

When people in rural South Australia start dying because of the intransigent attitude of this Rann Labor government, the government will be held to account. It might not happen this year or next year, but it will happen. For those opposite, who are sitting there smiling, grinning and feeling complacent about it, it will be on their head. It is tantamount to a national disgrace perpetrated against South Australia by this government. It is a lack of a duty of care. They think, 'Oh, that's fine; we can reduce all these services; we can cut them back. We can save money here; we can save money there.' Let me tell you, Mr Speaker, where a lot of these hospitals have come from—they have come from the communities that have built them over decades. In many cases, they are soldiers' memorial hospitals built in remembrance of servicemen from rural and metropolitan South Australia who fought for this nation. They were built by local communities to care for local communities and, along with schools and places like that, they are the centre and the absolute pillar of those communities.

The communities have raised enormous amounts of money over many years to keep these facilities going, to upgrade them and to provide equipment for these hospitals. What have we here? We have this absolutely ludicrous Country Health Care Plan brought in by this government that seems to have hit an iceberg. I reckon the 'Good Ship Rann Titanic'has hit twoicebergs and is going down, and it will take them all with it.

You only have to wait around and see the anger in country people. They are slow to get upset and angry, but at the moment they are almost ready to cause a revolution about a couple of things: the River Murray and country health. Don't be surprised at what happens. Don't be surprised if they decide to come to town, like they have in the past (I remember the live sheep dispute) and, if they decide to come to town and take it into their own hands, well, look out.

If it thinks it can duck and weave on this one, the government of South Australia has another think coming. It will be held to account, and it will not go away. This Minister for Health is perhaps the weakest and most ineffective South Australia has ever had. He is totally run over by the bureaucrats. In defence of the former minister for health, Lea Stevens knew what these people wanted to do but had the guts and courage to stand up to them and stand up for communities. She understood what rural health was about. She was not going to turn the world upside down. But, oh no, not minister Hill.

Mr Sherbon and his mates have been trying to get their hands on it and take permanent control, removing the boards and putting in their place these hacks with no power whatsoever. They have been trying to do that for years. It is a pity that some board members have seen fit to go on them; I would not have a bar of them. They are a joke and a payoff—without pay, I might add.

I look back at some of the bureaucrats I have dealt with over the years. Len Payne, who used to be a country health director, was a terrific bloke. He and Ian Dunn did a marvellous job with country health, as did the people in the government offices, some of whom are no longer there, such as Kevin Eglinton, Rick Brand, Jacqui Sutherland and Jill Cooper. They had a close attachment to country health.

Some of these officers are still working in the system, but they cannot say anything for fear of retribution from these mandarins in the glass tower in Hindmarsh Square. They will be slotted really quickly if any of them speak up. They are disgusted and absolutely appalled. They are outraged because everything they have worked for over so many years has been torn out from under them.

Mark my words: in due course, what will happen is that, under this mob, these hospitals will be closed. This absolutely despicable Rann Labor and National Party government deserves condemning in the strongest possible terms. Through our shadow health minister, we will have a lot more to say on where we will go with health when we regain government—and I tell you that that is coming.

The member for West Torrens is not in the chamber. I will buy him a bottle of acetone so that he can unglue his backside from the back bench. I reckon his next chance will be to become a shadow minister in the Labor Party opposition on 21 March 2010, and I look forward to that.

This is a disgrace. The member for Flinders is bringing forward concerns that are felt all round rural Australia. There is no semblance of an investigation into what is going to happen and into the economies of these towns. No regional impact statements have been done. It was just rolled out at about 7 o'clock at night on budget day by the cowardly mob on the other side. We are left with a disaster that is going to be perpetrated on rural South Australia. Let me once again remind members opposite that, when people start dying in rural South Australia because they cannot get to a hospital in time—

Ms Breuer interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: The member for Giles is okay. That's all right. When they start dying, we will hold you to account.

Ms BREUER (Giles) (12:50): Members opposite should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. That is absolute lies and bullshit! You should not be talking like that. You have been out there for the last six weeks—

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr PENGILLY: I have a point of order.

Ms BREUER: —and peddled misinformation to people—

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Giles will take her seat.

Mr PENGILLY: On a point of order, sir, I believe that is unparliamentary language, and I ask the member to withdraw.

The SPEAKER: The member for Giles does have to withdraw the word 'lies'. As to the other word she used, I suggest that she perhaps tone down her language.

Ms BREUER: Mr Speaker, I withdraw the word 'lies'. What has been happening out there in our communities for the past few weeks is an absolute disgrace. As members of a party, you should be ashamed of yourselves for the misinformation that you have spread and for the mischievous way that you have approached the matter.

I have been to some of these country health meetings, and I have heard the rubbish that has been pushed around. At two meetings that I attended, people got up and slagged the Minister for Health. They called him a 'bloody liar' and said that he could not be trusted. I have heard that it has happened at all the other country meetings as well. The misinformation that you are putting around is absolutely appalling. No country hospital will close, but you have people out there terrified about what is going to happen in their community.

The other day, an old lady from Cowell rang my office. She said that she was a member of the hospital auxiliary at Cowell and that they did not want to raise money for their hospital anymore, because it all had to go to the Whyalla Hospital. What absolute nonsense that is. That is the sort of fear that is out there. People are terrified about what is happening in their hospitals, because of what you have said about country hospitals. I go to these meetings. You people send your members of parliament along. You put plants in the audience to put this information around, and it is absolute nonsense, and you know it.

You know that we have a serious crisis in our country hospitals because we cannot get the staff to go out there and work. How many communities still have the old GP who could do everything? They could fix your sore toe, your sore bum, they could deliver your baby, they could do whatever. How many country hospitals still have those GPs, and what is the likelihood that we can get them in the future? Of course we will not get them in the future. I would love to see GPs out there to do what they have done forever. But that is not happening any more. We cannot even get them out of the leafy suburbs in Adelaide. We cannot get them down to Port Noarlunga and we cannot get them down to Marion, so how can we expect them to go to Coober Pedy, Ceduna and places like that? We are in a crisis. Something has to happen.

Finally, this government has come up with a plan that will look after these hospitals and get something done out there so that, when this happens, the communities will be looked after. Nobody expects people to drive for an hour an a half to go to a hospital. It will not happen, and you know it will not happen. The way you have handled this is disgraceful.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Ms BREUER: The things that you have done out in those communities is disgraceful. You have frightened the life out of country people. You have frightened them into thinking that they will not have their hospital. Of course they will have their hospital, and of course they will have staff out there. They will not be expected to drive for an hour an a half when they have had a heart attack or if their baby is convulsing. It will not happen. It will not happen at all. We have to get staff to work out there. We have to provide services in these communities, and we will. We have done a very good job of planning this, but you have absolutely sunk the ship. You have gone out there and frightened the life out of people, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

The other day, Bevan and Abraham went to Yorketown and sat there all morning. We had mischievous people ringing up, once again reinforcing the lies about what was going to happen down there. We know that the Yorketown Hospital is not going to close. I heard Bevan and Abraham say to someone a few days later, 'At the end of the morning, we thought: what was the problem? Nothing was really going to change.' But out there, people still have the perception that their hospital is going to close. You have handled this in a disgraceful manner. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

We will look after people in the community, as we have always looked after them. But where are the GPs and nursing staff who can go out there? We have to do something drastic. We will do what we can to keep staff in those areas, but, if we cannot get them out there, what will happen to the people? You have put in red herrings about emergency services and other things, and it is not true. You know it is not true, and you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself, Graham Gunn! You are sitting there looking at me and frowning. You know that it is rubbish, and you know that, if you were in government, you would have to do something as well. So, do not try to tell me this. I have been out there trying to fight for my communities and trying to get this message across, but they are not listening. We have a serious problem of communication and it is because of you—you have caused it.

The Hon. G.M. Gunn interjecting:

Ms BREUER: You should be ashamed of yourself if you have frightened old people out there. You should be ashamed of yourself: it is an absolute disgrace.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (12:55): I will not talk untruths, but let me say that an article was published in the local South Eastern Times in Millicent a week ago. The article quoted me as saying in the house that the figures pertaining to the Millicent hospital were wrong because the Country Health Care Plan suggests that the Millicent hospital has 35 beds. I told the house that there may well be 35 physical beds at the hospital, but the hospital is funded to 28 beds, and if a 29th patient arrives at the door of the hospital, they are not admitted, they are moved on—generally to Mount Gambier.

On reading my contribution to the house, the local paper rang the minister's office. After two days of deliberation, the minister's office said that I had got it wrong and that I had ignored the two dialysis chairs that were in the hospital. So, they are counting them as beds. I have news for the minister: his office, after two days, could not understand that the dialysis chairs had been closed since December last year. Don't tell me and my colleagues that we have got it wrong.

I would suggest to the member for Giles that she go back and look at the budget, because the budget shows an increase in funds for the country health budget of 3 per cent. The Treasurer stood in this house and told us that the health inflator is at 9 per cent. In the current financial year (which we have just begun), we have a real decrease to country health of 6 per cent. We had the exact same last year. We have had the exact same happening year after year whilst you have been in government, yet you have the temerity to stand up in this place and say that we cannot get health professionals into country areas. Well, hello, I can tell you why we are struggling to get health professionals into country areas: we are not funding country health; we are cutting it all the time.

The Hon. R.J. McEwen interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: The member for Mount Gambier is suggesting that we closed hospitals. We have never closed a country hospital—

The Hon. R.J. McEwen interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: I thought you were delighted with the service that you were getting at Mount Gambier. I will tell the house that Mount Gambier is one of the most pampered hospitals in the state. The regional country health board in the South-East took millions of dollars out of the hospitals in my electorate and transferred them to Mount Gambier. I think it is outrageous. One of the things which is really concerning me is that, over a great number of years now, the community of Millicent (my home town) has collocated and built an aged-care facility on the same campus as the hospital. I was told last week by a former board member that Country Health is taking over that facility. The asset value is probably $10 million. Currently, it has a debt of $4 million, and is well on the way to paying off that debt. Along with taking over the country hospital, it is getting rid of the board which also ran that aged-care facility. This is happening in every country town across the state.

Country Health is taking over all those aged-care facilities, which, by and large, are on the same campus as our country hospitals. The Department of Health, through Country Health, is taking over all those aged-care facilities and it will transfer the funds which come from the commonwealth government into propping up the running of country hospitals. That is about, first, cutting the budget to country health; and, secondly, grabbing the assets and the funds that come to country communities for aged care and using that to supplement the meagre amount of money that this state Labor government provides, with the support of the members for Mount Gambier and Chaffey, to undermine our country hospitals and grab any money they can along the way through.

I think that is an absolute disgrace and it works against something for which country people have fought and worked hard for many years. The other thing I tell members of the government is that, in country hospitals, by and large, they go to great lengths to get patients to come in as private patients and bring funds into our public hospitals from the private sector. In Bordertown—which is in my electorate and where 1,500 people attended a meeting a couple of weeks ago—almost $1 million a year comes from the private health sector to help fund the Bordertown public hospital, that is, 32 per cent of that hospital's budget.

We have the same thing happening across all the hospitals in my electorate, and I would suggest that it is common across the state. That will not happen under your Country Health Care Plan. Your government, your budget, will have to find all that money. That is one of the things that is wrong with the Mount Gambier hospital. Mount Gambier hospital has been run differently from the smaller country hospitals and its effort to get funds out of the private sector has been relatively abysmal, to be quite honest.

Debate adjourned.


[Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00]


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