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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-05-12 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

INTERNATIONAL NURSES DAY

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:27): As the health minister said during question time, he and I had the pleasure of going across to Rundle Mall this afternoon to help the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (SA Branch) celebrate International Nurses Day, which is today, 12 May. International Midwives Day was officially on 5 May; however, both are being celebrated today.

The role of nurses and midwives in society has been a long and very honourable one for many years, not just the last 100 years that we are celebrating with the centenary of the death of Florence Nightingale, who was born in 1820 and died in 1910.

Nurses in Rundle Mall were providing information for people passing by, and while the health minister and I were there—and I should also say that the member for MacKillop went over there as well—we had our blood pressure taken. My blood pressure was a bit higher than I would have liked it to be, but I am relaxed about that because, having had a number of tests in the last couple of months, I know that my cardiovascular system is working exceptionally well. Can I say that the member for MacKillop's blood pressure was 130 over 70, which is exceptionally good. He must be on some very good red wine or some very good pills; I am not sure which. He must have had Leonie, his wife, with him at the time to keep him nice and calm.

The sad part about today is that I was given a sheet outlining some of the information that you can get to ask and answer questions about your health. There is a website here, www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au—not South Australia. There is no website on here for the South Australian health department, which I think is pretty disappointing. I asked the minister to take note of that so that, perhaps, we can do something about it. It is always nice to buy home-grown rather than having to go across the border to see the Mexicans.

Nurses and midwives do an excellent job in South Australia. I speak with the federation on many matters and we get on exceptionally well. We do not always agree on everything but we do talk. In fact, when I spoke to its state council last year, I described the federation as an association, and I was reminded that it was a union. I said that calling the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation a union is like calling the USS Midway a boat. I do not think it is; I think it is much more than that.

It is a powerful organisation and does represent its members exceptionally well. In fact, one of the issues that has been raised with me by nurses is another very serious issue here in South Australia. I do not know which genius decided to do this, but that was the transfer of the renal unit from The Queen Elizabeth Hospital to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. That would have been okay if it were a permanent move, but we all know the government plan to build a new hospital down at the railyards, so by 2016 we will have to move that renal unit again.

We had a world-class renal unit at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, backed up by world-class nursing staff, medical imaging staff, renal dialysis staff and researchers. But what happened? There was a decision made to bring that away from TQEH to the RAH. Fine. However, you are going to bulldoze it in a few years' time.

It started out at about $15 million, I understand it has gone to $20 million—I have even had as high as $40 million put to me by a senior doctor at the Royal Adelaide Hospital for the cost of that move. That is good value for money, bulldozing it in six years' time! I just do not understand why you would do this when you had a world-class facility already operating down there.

I have been told that, because of the move, there have been significant problems with patients having to go back down to TQEH for testing, for dialysis, backwards and forwards. It is just not working smoothly, not working seamlessly. I did hear of one tragic case where, because of the unavailability of an ultrasonographer after hours—and you need to have regular ultrasounds to check that the renal vein and renal arteries are working well and the new kidney is working well—a kidney transplant actually failed because it was not checked and that kidney ended up in the bin. That is a tragedy that should never have happened. It would be very unlikely to have happened if it had stayed down at TQEH. Why this move came about I do not know. It is a waste of money, it should never have happened.

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