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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-09-29 Daily Xml
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HEALTH SYSTEM

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (14:34): My question is to the Minister for Health. I have one suggestion: he should resign.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Dr McFETRIDGE: After 10 years of Labor, will the minister tell South Australians why, when someone has an acute heart attack, they cannot get immediate hospital treatment and instead are diverted from one hospital to another because of overcrowding? Last weekend, a patient suffering an acute heart attack was being transported in an ambulance to the Lyell McEwin Hospital. The ambulance was then diverted to the Royal Adelaide Hospital because of severe overcrowding at the Lyell McEwin Hospital.

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) (14:35): We have a range of triage categories in our health system which are determined by doctors. We have a 100 per cent success rate in dealing immediately with patients who are in category 1—100 per cent analysed by the AIHW, which is a national statistical measurement. We have a 100 per cent success rate in dealing with category 1 patients who are taken to the emergency department. The analysis, I would suspect, by the member for Morphett is flawed because category 1 patients are dealt with immediately.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I cannot hear the minister.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Category 1 patients are dealt with immediately and are taken to the emergency department that can provide the service that is appropriate. I will also say that we run a health system, not individual hospitals running themselves. We run a health system, so if one hospital is busy and has a lot of demand then we take patients to the next hospital that is available that is less busy. I would have thought that was the logical and smart thing to do.

When they were in government, it wasn't run in that way. They did not run a health system when they were in government: they ran hospitals with their own boards. Patients were taken to the hospitals, and they weren't diverted to other hospitals where there was capacity. They would have to wait at a busy hospital. If that is the system that South Australians want, that is the system that the opposition is promoting. I for one am opposed to it. I think any proper analysis would suggest that running a system-wide approach where you use the capacity in the best way you can, rather than clogging up a system with patients when there is already a huge demand, is a very unwise way of running a health system.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Kavel, you are warned for the second time.

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