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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-15 Daily Xml
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FLINDERS MEDICAL CENTRE

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (14:34): My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Why did he state that claims made by paramedics and hospital staff of instances of ramping at Flinders Medical Centre were not accurate? On 7 May, an elderly patient experienced internal bleeding while waiting in an ambulance outside the Flinders Medical Centre. The minister stated the patient was, 'brought into the hospital immediately. They weren't left in an ambulance.' However, the security video shows that the patient was taken back to the ambulance for up to 40 minutes.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (14:35): I am pleased that the member for Waite asked this question. I assume he is talking about media interviews I did last week. I was providing the media with information that had been provided to me. My staff asked for the security tapes to be checked and the facts were as the member for Waite said, so you can imagine my annoyance that the advice that I got was not accurate. The media—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! This is an important question.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The media outlets were told of the error and the information was corrected. I will just go through the facts of this particular case.

The individual was brought in by ambulance and was due to go into the high dependency unit at the hospital—it had been an arranged admission into the high dependency unit. Unfortunately (and this is one of the things that I want the independent review to look at), that information was not passed on to the high dependency unit in the hospital so, as a default position, the ambulance took the patient to the emergency department but that is not where he should have gone. The emergency department was busy, the patient was brought into the hospital on one occasion and then—and this area I am not 100 per cent certain of—I understand, after being taken into the emergency department, they were instructed to take him back to the ambulance.

The bit of the information that had been passed on to me was the movement into the emergency department, which was accurate: I was not informed that they had been returned to the ambulance. But my staff member said, 'I want to check the CCTV to ensure what really did happen,' and, as a result of that, the information was made available to the public. It is fine for the member to make this point and criticise me, but it was actually my staff that determined the facts and passed them on to the media. I am very disappointed that the information that was given to me was not accurate, but as soon as I found out what was accurate I made it public.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! You will have another opportunity to ask questions. Member for Mitchell.

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