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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-02-27 Daily Xml
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Ambulance Ramping

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:09): My question is to the Premier. What action did the Premier take when, again, the Ambulance Employees Association warned on 6 November last year that it couldn't respond quickly to priority cases even when lives were at risk?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:10): I appreciate that the Leader of the Opposition has given me another four minutes to talk on this, because as I have already outlined to the house, we—

The SPEAKER: You don't have to use those four minutes, Premier.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Sir, I feel like I have an obligation—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —because it seems to me like those opposite are in a constant state of denial. For some reason they feel that, despite all of the available information, all of the information which has been compiled completely and utterly independently of the government—

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order, sir.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —somehow all of that independent information is wrong and there was a great health system under those opposite.

The SPEAKER: The Premier will resume his seat. The point of order is for debate?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: It is clearly debate, sir.

The SPEAKER: I have the point of order.

The Hon. S.K. Knoll interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Transport is warned. I have allowed the Premier some time to warm up. Could he please come back to the question, thank you.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Yes.

Mr Malinauskas: What did you do after 6 November?

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: The reality is that we inherited a system which was not performing well. This is evidenced by the statistics compiled independently of the government and presented nationally. This is not something that is just done for South Australia: it is done for the entire nation, and it ranks every single hospital in the country.

The worst in the country last financial year was the Royal Adelaide Hospital. This was the hospital that those opposite had spent $2.4 billion to build. It is the most expensive hospital in the history of the world. They believed that it was operating perfectly, but the independent umpire said that it was the worst performing emergency department in the country. The second to worst was the Modbury Hospital, the third to worst was the Lyell McEwin Hospital, and fourth was the Flinders Medical Centre. That is what we inherited from those opposite. Since we inherited that situation—

The SPEAKER: Yes.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —which took hundreds of beds out of the Repat site, we have done everything we can to restore and alleviate the situation. Some of it is putting more beds back into the system. Some of it is sitting down and listening to clinicians about their ideas, and there have been a number of suggestions which have gone through the scrutiny of the department and which have been put in place. We have made management changes within our health system. We have made governance changes, and we are 100 per cent convinced—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —that what we have been doing since we were elected is to reverse the problems that were created by those opposite.

The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition.

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition has the call.

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