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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-09-11 Daily Xml
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Royal Adelaide Hospital Blackout

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (14:50): My question is to the Premier. Does the Premier consider it appropriate for generator testing at a hospital to occur while patients are undergoing procedures?

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:50): You have to test your generators under live, real-life circumstances. Let me just explain the information that I have. This has only just arisen, but let me share it with the house as clearly as I possibly can. You don't test backup generators at times when everything is perfect, everything is safe and you haven't got load.

What happened in the hospital was that there was a test of the backup generators. All the staff were aware that this test was happening. One of the generators failed. Part of the hospital was blacked out for four minutes. There were absolutely no adverse medical outcomes from this whatsoever. To be quite frank, this is exactly why you do testing.

We know how many generators in hospitals let patients down back in September 2016 when the previous government plunged the entire state into a blackout. It happened in my electorate in Port Augusta and it happened in other places. There was a dreadful situation that happened with the loss of embryos down at Flinders hospital. We are doing everything—

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order: it is highly emotive debate to say that the opposition, the then government, plunged the state into darkness.

The SPEAKER: I have the point of order.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hammond can leave for the rest of question time.

The honourable member for Hammond having withdrawn from the chamber:

The SPEAKER: I have the point of order. It's a fair point of order. The minister is entitled to compare and contrast, but the point of order has merit and I do respectfully ask the—

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: The point of order does have merit, let me say that.

The SPEAKER: Yes. The minister has made his point. I ask you just to keep to the substance of the question, thank you.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I also ask the member for Adelaide to withdraw the accusation that I killed embryos.

The SPEAKER: Minister, please be seated. The Minister for Child Protection, if that is what she did utter, would she like to withdraw that comment—if she did say it? I didn't hear it. I am giving her an opportunity to withdraw it.

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: As a result of the blackout, embryos died.

The SPEAKER: Yes.

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: So—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Members on my left and right, I will deal with this. If you said it, I ask you to please withdraw it.

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: I withdraw it.

The SPEAKER: Thank you. Let's not descend to a level of decorum that we don't want to be in. Let's get on with it. There are 11 minutes to go. The minister has the call, thank you.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: We are all aware of the potentially dire consequences of having blackouts; there is no doubt about that. What we are doing and what any sensible government would do is to test these backup generators. What we have had today is a test that the staff were made aware of. They were told, 'We are going to test the backup generators. We are going to test the backup generators under live circumstances,' which is entirely appropriate.

One of the generators failed. Very, very quickly power was restored to the hospital. Part of the hospital went without power for four minutes. There were absolutely no adverse medical outcomes from that, as far as we are aware. I can tell you, Mr Speaker, to have done that test, to now know that that generator needs attention and could not be relied upon if we had any more serious a situation than that is actually a positive thing and we will move on.

The Minister for Health and Wellbeing will deal with this, no doubt, within the hospital, but testing these generators is a very sensible thing to do. I am pleased there were no adverse health outcomes. I am pleased that we now know that, with no cost having been borne in a medical sense, the generator needed to operate better, and I have no doubt that that generator will get attention very, very quickly.

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