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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-09-05 Daily Xml
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FLINDERS MEDICAL CENTRE

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (15:00): My question is to the Minister for Health. Has the minister's claim, made on 28 August, that no patients had been ramped in ambulances at Flinders Medical Centre since 16 July been proven inaccurate and, if so, what are the correct facts?

On 28 August at Flinders Medical Centre the minister said: 'We've had no ramping here for whatever period of time, for some six or seven weeks.' That afternoon, Phil Palmer of the Ambulance Employees Association stated: 'We've been advised by our members there's been numerous occasions of ramping over the last seven weeks.' The following day, the state secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, Elizabeth Dabars, said there was 'up to six ambulances outside the hospital awaiting to unload their patients' the previous evening at Flinders Medical Centre.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (15:01): I thank the member for his question. I have a detailed explanation, which I have four minutes to complete. I will just give you some background information. In July 2012 the Flinders Medical Centre emergency department recorded 5,978 presentations, compared with 4,995 in July the year before.

The percentage of time that the emergency department spent in the white demand status (high demand) in July 2012 compared to that previously was as follows: the monthly average for July 2010 was 42.46 per cent, for July 2011 it was 12.6 per cent, and for July 2012 it was 6.7 per cent; so we have seen a real reduction in the amount of time people spend in that high demand area. That improvement has occurred despite significant increases in demand, and it is an indicator of the improved patient flow at the FMC. We are also told that mental health patients were spending less time there.

On 28 August, which I think is the day that the member referred to, 192 patients attended the Flinders Medical Centre emergency department. There were some notable peaks of 17 attendances at 10 o'clock at night, which is higher than average, which resulted in that white demand status for several hours. Other metro areas were also experiencing a peak in demand. There is a whole range of escalation plans implemented. Staffing was made available to all areas as requested, especially in the emergency department, to compensate for the peaks in demand.

There were four delayed transfers that occurred, all triage category 3: two ambulances were delayed for 25 minutes, one ambulance was delayed for 35 minutes, and one ambulance for 105 minutes. This last case was a transfer from the Ashford Hospital, so it was an intrahospital transfer; it was not a patient coming in from a particular episode. They are the facts. Now, they have been described one way by the hospital and they have been described in other way by the unions, but they are the facts. There were four ambulances on that day, but two ambulances were delayed for 25 minutes and one ambulance was delayed 35 minutes.

What the hospitals try to do is to have a transfer of patients from the ambulance within certain set time frames. The performance over the last six weeks or so has been vastly improved. There is no policy to hold patients in ambulances outside the emergency department as there was prior to the recent changes at the hospital. We are also implementing, of course, a range of initiatives that were suggested by Dr Monaghan. What I am confident of is that there are vast improvements in the emergency department and the—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Madam Speaker, the interjections on the other side, of course, do not aid debate. What they do is just show that there is a competition on the other side for attention. We understand that; we understand that competition for attention. But the reality is that different people can have different views about a set of events. The department's and the hospital's advice to me was as I described it to the media on that day, and I have just given you the evidence which supports that advice.

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