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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-03-24 Daily Xml
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ROYAL ADELAIDE HOSPITAL

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:25): My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister confirm that, since the new Royal Adelaide Hospital was announced in 2007, the government is now paying far more than originally proposed for the hospital and getting far less than originally proposed?

When the hospital was first announced, there were to be 800 beds. Now 84 of these beds are, instead, reclining chairs. All rooms were to be single rooms with ensuites, and that has now been changed to most rooms are single rooms. Opening windows have been replaced with sealed windows. Furthermore, the new hospital will no longer have full catering, pathology, pharmacy, equipment sterilisation and outpatient services at the site, nor a train stop.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:25): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for this question because it demonstrates once again that the opposition is still trying to fight the last election campaign—which they lost. One of the critical issues at that election—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —was the proposition of whether or not we needed a new Royal Adelaide Hospital in South Australia. Well, the voters have decided, we have been re-elected and we are getting on with the job of building a new Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: If you stopped interjecting, I would get on with the answer. The clinical services in that hospital are being worked through with the medical profession and we are making sure that we have more services in the hospital. There will be more beds in that hospital. There will be more operating theatres in hospital. The operating theatres will be bigger operating theatres than at the existing hospital.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: There will be more emergency department space than in the existing hospital. The scope has not been reduced, if that is the import of the question from members opposite. There will be 800 beds in that hospital. Some of those beds—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister will answer the question.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: There will be 800 beds in the hospital. Just as there are day beds and overnight beds in the existing Royal Adelaide Hospital, there will be day beds and overnight beds in the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I am sorry if the people in the opposition do not understand the way a hospital works. More and more patients get services on a day basis and they need beds. That is what they need: beds. They do not need an overnight bed, they need a day bed. That is the same in the private sector and it is the same in the public sector. We have not—I repeat—we have not changed the scope.

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for MacKillop! Allow the minister to answer your question.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The scope has been defined over the course of the project, but 800 beds is what we said and that is the number that, as I understand it, will be in the new hospital. In addition to the day beds, of course—

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, Leader of the Opposition!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Look, there are 40 minutes of question time. I am happy to answer all the questions that the leader might ask me, but I wish she would do me the courtesy of giving me the question and then listening to the answer. What she wants to do is ask the question and, when I start providing the answer, she asks another question. It is very difficult to be logical.

I was reading the rules the other day and it is incumbent on all of us to be polite and try to make this system of parliament work, to be courteous to each other, to listen, to be respectful, to call each other 'honourable', and that is what I am trying to do. I am trying to go through, for the honourable Leader of the Opposition, the material that she—

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. Foley: Oh, come on, that's a reflection.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Madam Speaker, I do think the Leader of the Opposition just reflected on my answer. She said I had to tell the truth and of course I have to tell the truth. That is my responsibility and my duty, and I am attempting to do just that, Madam Speaker. The hospital will be a bigger, better hospital. It will have beds that are day beds but it will also have recovery chairs and it may be that the opposition does not understand this. It will have recovery chairs as well so, after somebody has been through a procedure, they sit in the recovery chair.

But it will have 800 beds in that hospital. All of the overnight rooms will be single rooms and they will have, as I understood it, opening windows. I am surprised if that has changed, but I will get detail on that. In relation to the railway station, the original thinking in the very preliminary architectural design that was done before we went through the recruitment process—the original planning—was to have a railway station associated with the hospital. I understand, on advice from transport, that that would create problems for the transport system. However, of course there is now a tram stop outside the hospital site and that is something that the opposition has also objected to.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. I.F. Evans interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, the member for Davenport!

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I said you objected to it, I didn't say it was new. I said you objected to the tram extension, you objected to the new hospital. They know how to be oppositionist; they are very good at being in opposition. They oppose every single thing we do as a government. Every single positive thing that is done in this state, they oppose. They are so good at opposition.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister will sit down. Point of order.

The Hon. I.F. Evans interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, the member for Davenport.

Mr PENGILLY: I rise on a point of order: standing order 98.

The SPEAKER: Yes, I will uphold that. Have you finished your answer, minister? You are going to go straight back to your answer if you get on your feet again. You have finished your answer. Thank you.

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