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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-11-11 Daily Xml
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MARJORIE JACKSON-NELSON HOSPITAL

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:52): My question is to the Minister for Health. Has the budget for the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital been reduced by $300 million? Last week, it was announced that the site of the proposed hospital had shrunk by 30,000 square metres—from 170,000 square metres down to 140,000 square metres. The opposition was informed during a briefing provided by the minister's office that the costing of the hospital originally had been loosely based on a cost of $10,000 per square metre.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:52): The state government, as everybody knows, is building a state-of-the-art hospital, the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson. The project will produce a hospital for South Australians, providing the very best in patient care, in a brand new facility. The hospital will be planned based on advice on what we need from our clinicians and international architectural teams.

Our current planning is for the total hospital footprint to be more than 250,000 square metres, including over 150,000 square metres for key clinical spaces. It will have 20 per cent more beds than the 150 year old Royal Adelaide Hospital, and it will be more than 12 times the size of AAMI Stadium. I think that is an interesting comparison, because the opposition was planning to put a stadium on the site until just this week. We are going to build a hospital more than 12 times the size of AAMI Stadium on that site.

In every possible way, the new hospital will be superior to the more expensive and time-consuming proposal to redevelop the sprawling patchwork of buildings at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. The Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —will completely replace the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Much of the Royal Adelaide Hospital was built during the 50s and 60s, and I would say to anyone who has not been around there lately that it really shows its age.

The Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital will offer more services than the Royal Adelaide Hospital in a purpose-built facility. The Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital will be a major tertiary hospital, containing statewide services, such as burns, major trauma, radiation oncology and renal transplantation. The Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital will have more beds—800 beds compared to the 680 beds at the Royal Adelaide at the moment.

The Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital will be able to provide help to thousands more emergency patients every year. The new hospital will produce half the amount of greenhouse gas emissions compared to the Royal Adelaide, and it will use renewable energy. Most importantly, this brand new hospital will be built from scratch, with the needs and comfort of patients at the heart of the design. The majority of patient rooms will be single rooms with ensuites and views, we hope, of the river. That is 700 or so single rooms with ensuites. That is a far cry from the up to six-bed wards with patients sharing a bathroom at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

If you were to reconfigure the Royal Adelaide Hospital there is no way you could create 700 or so single rooms with their own bathrooms. You just could not do that with the best will in the world—you would end up with shared wards and shared bathrooms. The single rooms in the new hospital will be bigger than those at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, allowing additional treatment to be carried out in the rooms rather than patients being moved around the hospital.

These important specifications are detailed in the 'model of care' document for the new hospital which was released today. The 'model of care' is a key part of the very important planning process for the development of the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital. The document is the product of 18 months work.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is warned a second time.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Excellent! The document is the product of 18 months work with leading doctors, nurses and other allied health workers from the Royal Adelaide and the Queen Elizabeth hospitals. Up to 400 doctors and another 100 nurses and allied health staff have been involved in the numerous work groups who have developed this document—400 doctors plus 100 or so nurses and allied health workers. I pay tribute to them and thank them very much for their excited involvement in this project. It has also been approved by the state's Clinical Senate, which is the place where the leading health workers—doctors, nurses and allied health workers—come together.

The document provides to the private sector a strong vision of what the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital should look like and how it will focus on patient needs and care. This is the next step towards the construction of Australia's best hospital, the hospital that South Australians deserve. Can I say, directly answering the question, that the scope of the hospital is as I have described. It will have 800 beds and it will have more operating theatres. It will have all the things we require in the hospital. We have asked the planners to design it in the most efficient way they have, and if that happens to be a little smaller than our original estimate I think that is a cause for celebration rather than anything else. I commend the report I have published today to members of the house, and I encourage them to read through it to get an idea of how exciting this project is.

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