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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-03-26 Daily Xml
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ROYAL ADELAIDE HOSPITAL

Ms CICCARELLO (Norwood) (14:24): My question is to the Minister for Health. How will the opposition's proposed new building at the Royal Adelaide Hospital site impact on patient care?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:25): I thank the member for Norwood for her very interesting question. As members would be aware, the government plans to build a new hospital to replace the ageing set of buildings at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and to provide the best patient care for South Australians into the future. This week, as we all know, the opposition has come out with its response: three options for rebuilding on the existing site.

These options include a proposal for a new building at the RAH on the site of the North Terrace car park in front of the Emergency Department. According to the artist's impressions of the building, issued by the opposition leader and the deputy leader, it would be 12 storeys high, but the artist's impressions are just that—very artistic. They show the 12 storey building as only marginally taller than the existing four storey building next to it. As The Advertiser revealed yesterday—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Listen: this will be good, I promise you. Yesterday, as The Advertiser revealed, a 12 storey building built to normal dimensions would tower over the existing RAH buildings, creating an eyesore on the cultural boulevard. The deputy leader denied that this was an error in The Advertiser yesterday. She claimed, 'It's not a distortion. The contemporary building has a much lower floor height.'

In the light of the deputy leader's statement, architects have taken another look at the Liberals' artist's impressions. My advice is that, if the artist's impressions are to scale (as the deputy leader claims), on each floor the ceiling would be approximately 1.6 metres tall, or five feet three inches. I like to think of myself as about five feet 10 inches tall and, if I include my hair, I probably am. I am about five feet nine inches or five feet 10 inches tall.

If I were to inspect the deputy leader's hospital, I would have had to crouch. My colleague, the minister for further education, who is about six feet two inches tall, would not be able to stand in the building at all.

The Hon. M.D. Rann: It is a hobbit hospital!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Indeed. However, there is some good news: another colleague of mine, the member for Norwood, who asked the question, would be able to walk through the building. She is four feet 11½, as is the Minister for the River Murray, so there would be at least two members of this house who would be able to walk along the floors of the new building designed by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Interestingly, the member for Norwood would, in fact, have a nine centimetres of clear air between the top of her head and the ceiling. So, for her, it would be very roomy.

An honourable member: Don't wear your hair up!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: That's right. That does beg the question of where the artistic inspiration came from. My office thought about this, and we thought that it might have been the 7½ floor in the film Being John Malkovich. I do not know whether members are familiar with that film. For members who may not have seen it, this office floor was built at half height, forcing workers to crouch during their entire working day. I guess that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition might plan to recruit, as a cost saving measure, doctors and nurses of a particular height who could work in this building. As the Premier said, it would become a hospital for hobbits.

With the opposition leader and the deputy leader as the Basil and Sybil Fawlty of this parliament, this building is fast becoming known as Fawlty Tower. When it was first announced, it was obvious that the building would seriously block access to the Emergency Department, and we have already mentioned that its construction would seriously disrupt the running of the ED.

We then discovered that the building would also impede the path of helicopters transporting ill and injured patients to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and now we discover that the floor to ceiling height would mean that no-one taller than the member for Norwood would be able to use the building. This is further and very clear evidence that the opposition's plans are half-baked—half-baked floors, half-baked plans.

The choice for South Australians is yet again very clear: a brand new state-of-the-art hospital, with patient care at its heart or the Liberals' ill-conceived patch-up plan, with its buildings especially designed for the vertically challenged. Maybe all these problems are explained by the deputy leader, who so clearly told Channel 9 news last night, and I cannot help but agree with her:

There needs to be cooperation in the operation of the rebuild with those who are traversing passengers through that transit route.

I will leave it there.

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