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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-18 Daily Xml
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COVID-19 Vaccination Rollout

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (14:35): My question is to the Premier. Premier, what support will be provided to GP practices, such as the Gawler Medical Clinic, following issues with the vaccine rollout today? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain

Leave granted.

Mr PICTON: In today's copy of The Advertiser, Gawler Medical Clinic practice manager Kate Rosser said calls were coming in from as far away as Clare.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr PICTON: Quote:

It's been ridiculous; everyone is very unhappy…Our clinic and others are thinking about pulling out altogether because of the stress it is putting on staff.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Before I call the Premier—

Mr Odenwalder interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Elizabeth! Before I call the Premier, I warn for a second time the member for Schubert, I call to order the Minister for Energy and Mining and I call to order the member for Elizabeth.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:36): Not content with The Advertiser providing half the building in which we are currently placed, the Labor Party now wants The Advertiser to provide Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition to this parliament. I am happy to answer this question.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my right!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: As members would know, Professor Brendan Murphy, the secretary of the Department for Health federally, has described the current vaccination rollout as the largest peacetime logistical exercise in our nation's history. It is a shared responsibility between the commonwealth and the state. We are well underway with phase 1a, where we play a very significant role from the state's perspective. In fact, we have established 15 clinics across our state: six of those are dedicated Pfizer clinics and there are a further nine AstraZeneca clinics.

In phase 1b, we move to a different cohort of people. This is for adults aged 70 and older, all other healthcare workers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, young adults with an underlying medical condition, including those with a disability, and other essential services personnel and in settings with higher risk of transmission. This stage is supported by GPs. In total, the commonwealth has worked with almost 300 GPs in South Australia; 84 of those were included this week, but they will be progressively rolled out. That will total 18,000 doses, is my understanding.

The individual clinics have had to make a commitment to the commonwealth that this will not disturb their normal operation of providing general practitioner support for the community. They are frontline in terms of that level of support of primary health care in South Australia. Individual GP clinics, to my understanding, are provided with 50, 100 or, in some limited cases, 400 doses per week. They have not been established to provide mass vaccination here in South Australia but to augment their normal service with a vaccination program.

What we know is that we are very significantly increasing the daily vaccination doses which are being provided. Certainly, on Monday and Tuesday this week we went past 1,000 individual vaccinations per day. Yesterday, we sailed past 1,500—don't forget, that's just on the state side—plus what the commonwealth is doing and then of course what will be in place from the GPs as of next week.

We have made a decision in South Australia to have a gradual ramp-up, a careful ramp-up, so that we can do this properly. I note that there are some people catastrophising because potentially we didn't achieve a certain number by a certain date. Well, we make no apology for that. We want to make sure that the vaccination program in South Australia is safe and effective. We want to sell the message to the people of South Australia that this is a very safe and a very effective vaccine.

We need people to have this vaccination, and that's why it is free in Australia. We need people to have it to protect themselves, their families, their communities and their workplaces, so we are going about this in a calm and considered way. We appreciate that there were some calls to some of the GP clinics yesterday, which put undue stress on people who were working in those clinics. This was—

Mr PICTON: Mr Speaker—

The SPEAKER: The time for answering the question has expired.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Kaurna seeks the call.

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