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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-19 Daily Xml
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HOSPITAL BED NUMBERS

Ms SIMMONS (Morialta) (14:32): My questions are to the Minister for Health. What has been the increase in bed numbers in public hospitals; how will bed numbers increase in the future; and what is the minister's reaction to recent comments regarding hospital bed numbers?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:32): I thank the member for Morialta—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for MacKillop is warned.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I thank the member for Morialta for her question and acknowledge her strong interest in matters to do with health. As all members ought to know—and as the public ought to know—the demography of South Australia is such that, over the years to come, the demand for health services is going to increase. That is plainly an objective fact. Even if our population did not grow—and it is growing—the ageing of our population would mean that we need to provide more health services, and that will continue to be the case through until about 2042, when the baby-boomer generation leaves the scene. So, we have growth for the next 30 or so—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Leaves the scene.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Leaves the scene.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Passes on.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Passes on, departs, expires, etc—joins the—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Joins the great majority!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Joins the great majority. That is what we are looking at. We know that, as people get older, they are more likely to need health services. If you are over the age of 65, you are twice as likely to be in a hospital bed in the course of a year. If you are over 85, you are five times as likely to be in a hospital bed in the course of a year. So, we have to do two things: we have to reduce the demand for our health services by keeping people healthy—and prevention and primary health care, and all of those things about which I talk a lot, we are doing—but we also have to increase supply. We have to increase the number of beds, the number of places where we can look after our patients.

Since 2002, this government has opened an extra 248 hospital beds—staffed available hospital beds—in our metropolitan area hospitals. That includes 136 additional beds at the Flinders Medical Centre—136 for the growing southern suburbs—53 extra beds at the Lyell McEwin, and 27 extra beds at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. This morning, the deputy leader, in her usual style, made some claims about the total number of hospital beds that she alleges have been reduced.

The Deputy Premier claimed that the Leader of the Opposition made things up, but he is a novice when it comes to making things up compared to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. She is a class act when it comes to invention. She, like her mentor, is a statistician. Those of you who were around last term will recall that.

The true story is that, when the Liberals were last in government—from 1994-95 and 1999-2000—they cut 272 beds from metropolitan hospitals. Their record between 1994 and 2000: they cut 272 metropolitan hospital beds in their term in office. I compare that to the fact that, in the six years that we have been in office, we have put in an extra 248 beds.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The deputy leader by way of interjection said, 'Start telling the truth.' I am telling the truth. She is reflecting on me in a way which is similar to the reflection that the Leader of the Opposition objected to when the Deputy Premier was making comments. It is all right for them to have it one way, but when it comes to the facts, they just run away, they make up things. Both of them make up things, but the deputy leader is the class act, I must say. The deputy leader also claimed—this is the bit that I really want to get to—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Ask a question, Vickie. You never ask any questions about anything of substance, you just ask questions about the most trivial things, but go ahead, ask any question you like. The deputy leader in today's paper—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Deputy Leader of the Opposition!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The deputy leader also claims in today's paper that the RAH was once a hospital with over 1,000 beds. That may well have been true in the 1970s and early 1980s when there were Florence Nightingale wards where you had a large number of people—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: You keep making this statement, so clearly you do not understand the facts. So, if you listen for a second or two, I will explain it to you so that you finally understand.

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for MacKillop.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Once, many years ago, the RAH possibly had over 1,000 beds on the RAH campus on North Terrace. That is because they had people stacked and racked and packed in those hospital wards cheek to jowl right along the old Florence Nightingale wards. Of course, over time—

The Hon. R.J. McEwen: High infection risk.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: As the minister for agriculture says, there was a high infection risk, and so those wards have been converted into smaller sets of rooms—four and six berth wards. That is why we lost a lot of beds. The deputy leader is relying on the RAH annual report from 1998-99, and it is true, it does say that there are a total of 1,023 beds at the RAH. From this, the deputy leader jumps to the claim (I think that is implied by her comments; certainly I inferred them from her comments) that this government has reduced the number of beds at the RAH from 1,023 to 600-odd. She knows that is not true. The 1,023—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: But says it anyway.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: She says it anyway, because she and truth are strangers to one another. In that report it says 1,023. However, let me tell the house, as the deputy leader I am sure knows, that 1,023 beds in 1998-99 (which is in the RAH annual report) consists of 639 beds at the North Terrace campus (what we know as the RAH), 244 beds at the Glenside campus and 140 beds at the Hampstead campus. And why are they all attributed to the RAH? Because under the old-fashioned, clumsy, antiquated scheme that the Liberals operated, the RAH board ran all those hospital sites. She knows that is the case, but she uses that bit of information in a misleading way to try to present a set of arguments which she knows are shamefully untrue.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: How did that MP get it so wrong?

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Indeed. As a government, we know, understand, accept and realise the imperative of increasing the number of beds in our hospitals. We need to do it to create space for the patients we know will—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will come to order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Say something of substance sometime. Ask a question which has some merit to it Vickie. You come out with all these things across the chamber, but you never ask me a real question.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Ask me a question.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: In addition to the 248 beds that we have opened to date, we are also planning to produce 250 additional beds as part of our Health Care Plan. The deputy leader by way of interjection says, 'What about chairs?' Well, the reality, of course, is that surgery today—and my colleague the minister for mental health will understand this better than anyone else in this place—is different from the way surgery was done 10, 20, and 40 years ago. A lot of procedures now are done in day—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader will come to order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Does she ever stop? She never stops. As most members would know, and the minister for mental health particularly, surgery is done differently these days to years ago. As has been explained to me, a number of years ago (20 or 30 years ago), if you had cataracts removed from your eyes you might spend two weeks in hospital with your head locked in one position with sand bags around it so that you did not move so that you would recover properly and be able to see. Now, of course, that is a day procedure, and you are in and out within a couple of hours.

We do need to build hospital beds to take into account the changes in surgical procedures. So, some of the beds are day beds. They are not chairs, they are day beds.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The extraordinary mirth from the other side not only demonstrates how they—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Mr Speaker, the mirth on the other side demonstrates an absolute tragic lack of understanding of what happens in our hospital system. They are locked into an—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for MacKillop will come to order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I did not hear what you said. They are locked into a thinking about health which is antiquated. People do not sit on chairs and have surgery: they are on a bed when they have the procedures. There are recovery chairs, but I am not talking about recovery chairs, I am talking about day beds for surgical procedures in our hospitals. So, we have done 248 and we have another 250 to come. We need those beds by 2016, and that is partly why we are building a new hospital.

We will put an extra 120 more beds on that site. We will have extra operating theatres because we need more of those. We will have more intensive care beds because we need more of those, and we need an extraordinarily larger amount of emergency treatment capacity—we need to increase that by about 25 per cent.

The majority of the 800 beds in the new hospital—the new RAH—will be in single rooms with their own facilities. The reason for that is not, as one of my critics said in the newspaper, because we want to give patients motel-style accommodation because we think that is nice. There are two main reasons for doing that: first, it is better for a patient's recovery to be in a single room because they will not be interrupted by other patients who are being treated. In addition, of course, they are less likely to get cross-infection from other patients, particularly the deadly MRSA.

It is about patient safety, and you cannot do that on the existing site. That is why we are also expanding our other key hospitals, and I am very pleased that the Leader of the Opposition commended me for this recently, so I do thank him for that. He told ABC Radio on 29 January that the government had—and I quote him—'developed the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, they have spent money at Lyell McEwin and they plan to spend money at Flinders and they have got results'. I agree. We did get results. Rann does get results. Indeed, by the end of this year we will have created an additional 58 beds at the Lyell McEwin as part of our $336 million redevelopment of that site. We are virtually doubling the size of that hospital.

We will have also created an additional 30 beds at the Flinders Medical Centre by 2010. That is on top of the beds we have already opened there, and that is part of the $153 million redevelopment which does include an expanded emergency department and new operating theatres.

Furthermore, the western suburbs, of course, are being looked after, too. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is being modernised. A $127 million second stage redevelopment is continuing, with a new 72 bed in-patient wing and a 580 berth car park and childcare centre already completed.

We can rebuild these hospitals because there is the space available on those sites. The existing RAH is landlocked with little room for expansion. The only way one could feasibly rebuild a hospital on the site would be to cut a large swathe through the Parklands and the Botanic Garden; and, if it was in office, clearly, that is what the opposition would do.

The leader has said they are going to rebuild the RAH on the existing site, and one of their advocates on radio this morning said: why not move into the Parklands; why not move into the Botanic Garden? If we are going to have a proper debate about whether we build a new RAH or rebuild on the existing site, the opposition must explain to the public where they will build it, how much it will cost, how they will get extra beds in there, how they will get extra emergency care in there, how they will get extra ICU beds in there and how they will get extra facilities for all of the services that we need for the future. They have failed to provide any evidence of that whatsoever. We know what they really want to do is build a football stadium down on the railway lines. They will not talk about that any more because they know that is a stupid idea and the public rejects it.

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