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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-10-29 Daily Xml
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GLENSIDE HOSPITAL REDEVELOPMENT

Mrs GERAGHTY (Torrens) (14:56): My question is to the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse. Can the minister advise the house on the status of the redevelopment of Glenside Hospital and forensic mental health?

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH (Adelaide—Minister for Education, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for Tourism, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (14:56): I thank the member of Torrens for her question. Of course, this is of significance to her because the mental health forensic facilities are within her electorate on the James Nash House site.

Last week, Monsignor Cappo and I released the plans and the designs for our new state-of-the-art hospital at Glenside. This is a $130 million development that will provide 129 beds in July 2012. That is eight months sooner than we had planned. This building work will begin on time according to our original schedule, with work beginning in 2010. The house would recall that, following the Mid-Year Budget Review, we had delayed the completion date to January 2014, but I am now delighted to say that we are managing to bring this development forward. I am sure that all members are as excited as I am that we are going to be able to progress our renewal of our mental health facilities in South Australia. The new hospital will provide services of a modern standard and good working accommodation for our staff.

It is important that we note that the Rann government is investing $250 million to rebuild and reform our mental health services across the state as a response to the Social Inclusion Board's 2007 Stepping Up report. This will result in, overall, 86 additional beds within our system. The release of the concept plans is an important new step in the redevelopment of Glenside and follows an 11 month consultation phase with clinicians, patients, staff and a diverse range of interest groups.

The Adelaide-based Swanbury Penglase group have worked with the UK-based award-winning specialists in mental health design, MAAP Architects, and they have prepared the plans that are now publicly available for the community to have its say. We particularly want input into the design of the open space which will provide approximately five hectares of land on the corner of Greenhill and Fullarton Roads as well as, overall, more than nine hectares of open space for community and patient use across the whole site. That nine hectare calculation, I might say, does not include things like road verges and private gardens, because clearly they are not public open space.

I urge everybody who might be interested in these designs to look at the new hospital designs. The old-fashioned wards have been redesigned around a pod concept so that each of the clinical areas has a private internal garden which can be used for private therapeutic use by the patients. The public areas are separate. This allows the patients to be involved in outdoor activities without feeling that they are detained or restrained as they might have been in an old-style mental health hospital.

In terms of the public space, we have listened to the community about the conservation of trees. There has been considerable support for community gardens, (and I have to say that I am very keen on community gardens myself) a village green concept where people can play, kick balls and enjoy public recreation, a dog walking area and a soccer pitch. We know that there is a shortage of soccer accommodation across the state and I understand that there will be considerable support for having an under-19 sized pitch, and that may be possible if the community still wants it. In addition, local schools have been involved in designing playgrounds. This government will try to accommodate everyone's wishes, as well as the idea of having a large wetland at the corner of the development.

The vision for Glenside is really about integration. Mental health experts would say that it is far better for patients to be involved in day-to-day life, through other developments, than being excluded, locked up and forgotten, as might have happened in the old days. Of course the new hospital is a cornerstone of our reintegration of mental health, and that includes our stepping up/ stepping down facilities, so that patients can get intermediate levels of care when they do not need the full on, acute hospital bed treatment, as well as rehabilitation services when they are being reintegrated back into society. We know that one of the key messages from the community is that having patients going into hospital for acute care in their crisis phase and then going straight back home is a recipe for disaster. That is why the stepping up/stepping down type of facilities, with intermediate care with 24-hour medical care, is an important way of getting those patients back into their home environment.

Of course, the other element of which I should speak, in relation to the member for Torrens, is the work to move the beds from the Glenside site to consolidate all the forensic health facilities together at James Nash House at Oakden. That facility will be expanded to accommodate 40 patients, taking the 10 beds that are currently at the Grove Close secure ward site at Glenside and accommodating them close to the other facility. This is clearly good for the model of care. It allows the treating psychiatrists and nurses to work together instead of being isolated on a smaller facility site. I am pleased to say that the construction of this new facility will start in 2010 and be completed by the middle of 2012.

As part of the development of those extra 10 units to accommodate the patients from the Glenside secure site, the older existing facilities at James Nash will have upgrading of things such as air conditioning. This location, close to prisons, will be better for the forensic patients coming from prisons, but will also involve those people who have been deemed unfit to plead. These developments are part of the Rann government's broad-ranging investment in improving mental health facilities, both the built form and the model of care. I am very excited about and proud to be part of this development. It is a new era for mental health in our state.

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