HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-09-23 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Question Time

Hospital Beds

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:09): My question is to the Minister for Health. Given the AMA estimate that 1,500 Australians die each year waiting for a hospital bed, why won't the minister now take action to alleviate SASMOA and community concerns about overcrowding?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:09): We have been. We have done quite a bit. We have opened new mental health beds. We have created, or are in the process of creating, a direct entry facility at the Royal Adelaide Hospital for mental health patients so they don't have to go through the emergency department. We are in the process of creating a short-stay ward for mental health patients at the Flinders Medical Centre.

As of 22 August, we had an additional 153 inpatient beds in our public hospitals, consisting of 20 at the Flinders Medical Centre, four at Noarlunga Hospital, nine at the Repatriation General Hospital, 40 at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, 12 at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, 31 at the Lyell McEwin Hospital, 22 at Modbury Hospital plus15 additional inpatient beds at ViTA down at Daw Park. We have consistently increased the capacity.

We also have additional clinical staff on and we have employed additional ambulance crews to get us through the current crisis. I should also point out, though, that cuts that the federal government have made—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: I know they don't like to hear it, but it is true—the cuts that the federal government have made are making it increasingly difficult for our state public hospitals. I pointed out to the house last week the number of elderly patients waiting in acute hospital beds that on average cost about $500,000 a year, elderly patients not in need of acute care who had been assessed by an ACAT team as eligible for care in a residential-care facility but unable to secure a residential-care facility bed.

This comes down to the whole nonsense from the commonwealth about 'sovereign in your own sphere' and this idea that the commonwealth could completely withdraw from public hospital funding. Public hospitals do not exist on their own. They are not Robinson Crusoe. They rely on relationships in all sorts of other areas, the aged-care sector being one of them and, of course, primary health care, in particular GPs, being another.

The simple fact is that when the commonwealth government retreats from these areas, when they do not provide enough aged-care beds, when they do not ensure that there is adequate access to general practitioners around our state, then that has massive flow-on effects to our public hospitals. If the opposition were really interested in health and really interested in what was going on in our public hospitals, they would be joining this government and all their interstate Liberal colleagues in condemning the federal government.

Ms REDMOND: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The minister has strayed into debate.

The SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT