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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-03-25 Daily Xml
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ROYAL ADELAIDE HOSPITAL

Ms CICCARELLO (Norwood) (14:56): My question is to the Minister for Health. What is the government's response to claims that recent proposals for rebuilding the RAH would block access to the hospital's helipad?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:56): I thank the member for Norwood for this important question. Today I was able to reveal that the Liberal Party's proposed—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Today I can reveal that the Liberal Party's proposed 12 storey glass tower that is central to two of the Liberals' three proposals for the Royal Adelaide Hospital patch-up would block access to the helipad on top of the adjacent building.

This morning Dr Matt Hooper (the doctor heading up the new MedSTAR retrieval service—that is the trauma and retrieval service that brings injured people from all over South Australia to the Royal Adelaide Hospital) confirmed that his helicopter pilot's advice was that a building as high as the proposed 12 storey glass tower would cause significant problems. On his advice the helipad, which is vital for transporting hundreds of ill patients every year, would need to be closed on safety grounds. In other words, the hundreds of patients who are brought to the Royal Adelaide Hospital for emergency treatment would not be able to receive that treatment.

Mr Speaker, the Liberals' deceptive artistic impression of a 12 storey building made it look like a four storey building. Members will notice in the drawings they put out that a 12 storey building was made to look like a four storey building. Our architects have advised us that a 12 storey hospital building would be between 51.7 metres and 55 metres tall. This is 16.6 metres higher than the existing 38.4 metre tall helipad building. So, in other words, the building the Liberals are proposing would be almost 50 per cent higher than the building on which the helicopters land. This analysis of the proposed—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: They do not like this, Mr Speaker. Their propositions are falling down.

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for MacKillop!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Mr Speaker, this analysis is based on standard hospital buildings with a ground floor of 5.5—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Unley is warned!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: This analysis is based on a standard hospital building with a ground floor of 5.5 metres and subsequent floors of 4.2 metres to 4.5 metres tall. So this is an accurate analysis of how tall a 12 storey building would have to be.

The Liberals' glass tower—this 55 or 56 metre tower—would not provide the necessary clearance for helicopters. As Dr Hooper explained this morning, if a building is within 250 metres and is 35 feet or more higher than the existing helipad, it will significantly limit accessibility to the current Royal Adelaide Hospital helipad. To comply with safety standards, it would then be necessary for helicopters instead to land at Adelaide Airport and patients then to be transported to the hospital by ambulance. The Liberals laugh at this—they mock—but this is—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: They know they are not building any of their options.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: That is true. This is a significant and serious flaw in their propositions. You could not use the Royal Adelaide Hospital, with their proposition, for emergency landings of helicopters. Unlike claims made by the deputy on radio—

Mr Hamilton-Smith interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The leader says, 'Rubbish!' I would challenge the leader to talk to the aircraft safety people to get them to certify—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —that they can land helicopters on a building when there is a larger building of the size they are proposing adjacent to it. You cannot do it. Unlike claims—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Build it somewhere else, the leader says. What would happen, of course, is that if the Liberals were successful—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —in building their 'Fawlty Tower', then the helicopters would not be able to drop patients off at the hospital. They would have to be taken back to the airport. This is what Dr Matt Hooper—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: This is what the medical experts say.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The opposition says that they have been consulting with doctors. I would like to know which doctors they have talked to. They certainly have not been talking to the doctors responsible for retrieval because what they tell me is that, if you build a 12 storey building adjacent to the hospital, you could not use the hospital to land helicopters. You could not do that.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The Basil and Sybil Fawlty of the Liberal Party may believe that their 'Fawlty Tower' is the right way of proceeding, but I can assure them that building a 12 storey building in front of the emergency department would make the emergency landings of helicopters impossible; it would make access to the emergency department—at least during the construction stages—impossible; and it would mean that, if they had to put vital cancer equipment in, which they are taking out of a building and knocking it down, that would mean that the risk to patients who are using that building would be very high indeed.

In the space of two or three days, their grand plan to rebuild on the RAH site has been proved to be absolutely a failure. There is no way that, properly considered, you could rebuild on that site. We looked at this very carefully: we had engineers, health planners and clinicians—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —warning about building on this site, and what the Liberals have demonstrated with their three propositions—and they will not tell us which one they prefer. They will not consult on it until after the election, so their commitment is to nothing at all. However, what is demonstrated is that, even with the most expensive of the options the Liberals have come up with, which is $1.4 billion, you would not complete the renovations of that hospital. None of the engineering works (the pipes, electricity, air conditioning), all of those services which are underground across the hospital, would be fixed up with their propositions. With none of the propositions put forward by the Liberals would you be able to fix up those services.

So, $1.4 billion would just be the first price, then there would be subsequent prices of hundreds of millions of dollars to complete the work. We know that to upgrade that hospital on the existing site would cost over $2 billion, yet a new building down the road at $1.7 billion will produce a state-of-the-art hospital which will be complete by 2016, and it will definitely be the best hospital in Australia.

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