House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-11-18 Daily Xml

Contents

Noarlunga Hospital

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:33): My question is to health minister. Given that the Noarlunga Hospital's emergency department's statistics are not being updated to the dashboard due to problems with the Electronic Patient Administration System, what is the current performance of Noarlunga Hospital's emergency department?

Ms Redmond: What, EPAS isn't working?

The SPEAKER: The member for Heysen is warned. Minister for Health.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:34): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. Last week, InDaily ran a story about Noarlunga Hospital which mentioned that the doctors' union had inspected the hospital twice in the last month. The story also mentioned that the union had given the inspection report to SafeWork SA, accusing the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network of several breaches of the Work Health and Safety Act.

After the doctors' union inspection, it met with the chief executive of the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network and her senior staff to discuss the inspection. I understand that at this meeting the doctors' union was told that some of its claims were factually incorrect. Since then a SafeWork SA inspector has conducted a thorough investigation of the Noarlunga Hospital emergency department following claims from the doctors' union of breaches of the Work Health and Safety Act.

I am pleased to say that the SafeWork SA inspector confirmed that there were no breaches of the act and the emergency department complied with all legal requirements. Noarlunga Hospital is a safe environment—

Dr McFetridge interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Morphett is called to order.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Noarlunga Hospital is a safe environment for patients and staff, and the southern community, like all other South Australians, can be reassured that patient care is never compromised at our hospitals. We provided this information to InDaily and the opposition raised this matter last week, and I thank them for the opportunity to correct the record.

The SPEAKER: The member for Colton.

Mr MARSHALL: Sir, I have a supplementary.

The SPEAKER: You may do, but we are going to the member for Colton.