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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-17 Daily Xml
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Emergency Departments

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (15:01): Yes, thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Premier. Will the Premier take any responsibility for the crisis levels of overcrowding in our emergency departments? With your leave and that the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: As at 1pm today, the SA Health Emergency Dashboard showed every metropolitan ED at Code White or Code Red levels or at exceeding capacity, including 13 patients waiting over 24 hours for a bed. At the Royal Adelaide Hospital alone, there were 15 mental health patients waiting for more than an eight-hour period for a bed.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (15:02): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. He is quite correct: there is a surge in demand currently being experienced right across South Australia, and that is exactly and precisely—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier will resume his seat. It's true to say that I am not in a position to hear the Premier responding to the leader's question as things stand. There are limits to the capacity of the Chair without the cooperation of both sides to permit all members to have the opportunity to hear both question and answer. I remind members that the questioner and the minister responding to the question are entitled to be heard in silence. The Premier has the call.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: As I was saying to the house, there is indeed a surge in demand currently being experienced in South Australia. This does occur from time to time and it's one of the reasons why since coming to government we have put an additional $2.2 billion worth of new money into the budget here in South Australia.

We are currently spending an additional $1.1 billion in a range of capital projects around South Australia, and we do that, we make those two sets of investments, to improve on the system that we inherited so that we are in a position to be able to cope with these surges, which do occur from time to time. In terms of the—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —operating budget, we are very proud since coming to government to have a very significant increase in the number of doctors and nurses in the system here in South Australia. In fact, I am advised that we have 286 nurses and midwives over and above what the Auditor-General reported we inherited when we came to government.

We have 247 medical FTEs over and above what we inherited when we came to government. We are investing a massive amount of money in capital projects right across this state—right across this state—upgrading and expanding the emergency departments here in our state. Down at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, as those opposite would be well aware, they cut the services for the 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week cardiac services. This was very, very unpopular. One of the first things that we did on coming to government was to put those services back into place.

The opposition should hang their head in shame. The number one person who should hang their head in shame is of course the Leader of the Opposition, who was the health minister in place right up until the last election. We invested $4 million in upgrading the cardiac cath labs down at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and the stage 3 developments are currently underway. These are extraordinarily important projects.

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Hammond!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: The projects and the investment that we are making are not only focused on metropolitan Adelaide, where often we do experience some of the most acute surge situations. We are investing to address the backlog in country hospital maintenance right across this state. We take this issue very seriously. We inherited a broken system. What we are doing now is working every single day to make sure that we can expand our capacity and our capability to meet the current and the future needs of the people of South Australia.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Kavel, I call to order the member for Hammond.

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