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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-09-23 Daily Xml
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Public Works Committee: Queen Elizabeth Hospital Redevelopment

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (11:16): I move:

That the 130th report of the committee for the Fifty-Fourth Parliament, entitled The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Redevelopment—Stage 3, be noted.

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is a 303-bed acute care teaching hospital that provides inpatient, outpatient, emergency and mental health services to a population of more than 250,000 people living primarily in Adelaide's western suburbs. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is a centre for research, with the world-class Basil Hetzel Institute and, through a partnership with UniSA, it is a training ground for the next generation of healthcare professionals.

This proposal is for the construction of the new clinical services building at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which is the final component of The Queen Elizabeth Hospital—stage 3 redevelopment. This component will provide a new clinical services building, inclusive of:

emergency department comprising 46 treatment spaces, including 22 acute cubicles, two resus rooms, 10 fast-track cubicles, four behavioural assessment bays and eight extended emergency care cubicles. Seven external ambulance bays will also be provided;

medical imaging department comprising two CT scanners, one MRI suite, four X-ray suites, four ultrasound procedure suites, one fluoroscopy suite and also an additional angiography suite;

front of house unit functions;

intensive care unit comprising 14 beds;

central sterile services department;

pathology core lab on site;

procedure area, including interventional cardiac catheter laboratories, comprising a cardiac catheter suite, one cardiac procedure suite, three surgical procedure rooms and associated support pre-operative holding bays and post-operative recovery bays;

operating theatres and recovery facilities comprising 12 operating theatres and associated support, pre-operative holding bays and post-operative recovery bays; and

rehabilitation inpatient accommodation and therapy areas, including 52 single inpatient rooms.

Additional project works will include:

site engineering infrastructure systems and support structures;

works associated with relocating services from Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre into the existing main Tower Block and the existing facility services workshop building;

site works including new roadways, pedestrian movement and landscaping in the vicinity of the new clinical services building;

refurbishment of the existing Queen Elizabeth Hospital morgue; and

other related infrastructure and site consolidation works to achieve functional efficiencies, where available.

The total investing capital budget for the new clinical services building is $290.9 million, which is the majority of the approved Queen Elizabeth Hospital stage 3 redevelopment budget. The remaining funds previously funded the now multideck car park and the upgrade to the cardiac catheter laboratory facilities. Construction is expected to commence in May 2021, with practical completion expected in January 2024.

The committee examined written and oral evidence in relation to this project and received assurances that the appropriate consultation had been undertaken. The committee is satisfied that the proposal has been subject to the appropriate agency consultation and does meet the criteria for the examination of projects as described in the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991.

Based on the evidence considered and pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that it recommends the scope of the proposed public works that I have outlined to the house.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (11:20): Yet again, here we have another project that was committed and planned under the previous Labor government that has faced delay after delay under this government since the last election. This construction should have been well underway by now and should have been almost finished, but we are still on early works because this government have delayed and delayed this project over the past couple of years. You only have to look at the minister's own press releases over the past couple of years to see changing time lines for when construction was going to start slipping after slipping after slipping.

Very clearly, the plan that was articulated, planned and budgeted under the previous Labor government back in 2017 was to construct the new car park, then establish this new clinical services building on the old car park and then decommission the Tower Block building at The QEH. What we saw was a delay in establishing a new car park, but even once the new car park was established there was no action at all on the old car park site for building the new building. It was well over a year while nothing happened, and we are only seeing some early works now. Proper construction has not started. So we have basically seen two years of delay on this project under this government.

Then what is actually going to be delivered? Not what was promised is going to be delivered—let's be very frank. The whole range of services that are currently provided in the Tower Block building are to remain in the Tower Block building under this proposal. Outpatient services, education officers and various other speciality types of services that are provided are staying inside the 1960s Tower Block, which is not fit for service, because they are not fitting in this new building.

What the government is now basically saying, which they are not saying publicly but they are saying privately, is they are now going to need a stage 4 redevelopment at some stage in the future to come back and fix up what they have not fixed up this time. We do not know how much that is going to cost, we do not know when that is going to be, but eventually there will need to be a proper decommissioning of that Tower Block and those services will need to go into a new building. As I said, we do not know when that will be or how much that will cost at some stage down the track.

But outpatient services are not going to be in this new building. We also know that there are very clearly significant doubts about cardiac services. We have heard from the clinicians themselves their concerns about what the plans are for cardiac services in this new building, essentially downgrading those services in the new building, which goes exactly against what the government promised at the last election.

We are also hearing concerns from clinicians about gynaecology services at The QEH, that they may well be pulled out and sent to the Women's and Children's Hospital, depriving the western suburbs women of local gynaecology services and surgery in their local area, when we know that that is a significant area of demand in that area. These issues are still yet to be answered and there are significant doubts about what services will be going into that new hospital. Clearly, there is a lot of concern in the western suburbs about what the government has planned in terms of some of those important services and whether we will be seeing downgrades in these services.

Very clearly, when it comes to the capital works, the Liberals have delayed this project. It should have been very close to being constructed now, but we are likely not to see any significant construction before the next election. I think that shows the contempt the people of the western suburbs are held in by this government, particularly when you see there is no vaccination clinic in the western suburbs and no testing clinic run by the state government in the western suburbs. We are seeing services downgraded and significant delays to the upgrade of their hospital that should have been well underway by now.

Mr SZAKACS (Cheltenham) (11:25): I also rise on this important matter. Firstly, I would like to thank the member for Kavel for his stewardship of this committee. If it were not for his fairness as the chairman, I do not think we would have actually had some of the evidence we have been able to elicit from SA Health, which actually does expose that the Marshall Liberal government have been telling a whole series of porky pies for a number of years now about their intentions for The QEH. I will come to that evidence in a moment, including a number of matters that were provided on notice by SA Health that do expose that what you hear from the Marshall government is very different than what you get.

If you drive down Woodville Road like I do every single day—and I know that the member for Lee does and the member for Port Adelaide does a little less regularly but certainly spends a lot of time there—you would certainly see a few things happening. The first thing that you would have noticed happening in the last couple of years at The QEH was the massive and dramatic increases to car parking fees both for staff and patients.

It is perhaps to be forgiven for some of those members on the government benches not taking much notice of The QEH. They do not tend to drive past the city too much. To be frank, we would probably check their passports if they tried to as well. But it was pretty funny for me to see a couple of months ago the health minister blow in with a brand-new shiny hard hat and his high-vis vest to toss a bit of dirt down at The QEH. He was joined by a couple of other really awkward looking Liberal candidates. I do not think they would have spent too much time in a public hospital, certainly not in the western suburbs anyway, but they were looking pretty awkward.

It is understandable and quite forgivable that they looked awkward, because they would have to have known some of the furphies the government have been telling about The QEH. If they have been doorknocking in the western suburbs, then they will have been getting the very loud and clear message from residents that the absence, the complete jettisoning, of public policy from this government towards the western suburbs is stark and clear.

The lack of advocacy from the member for Colton for The QEH is quite stark as well. Again, forgivably, the member for Colton does not have those links to the western suburbs that the people like the member for Port Adelaide, the member for Lee and I do. I do not have the keys to the City of Salisbury like the member for Colton does, but if he were serious about standing up for the western suburbs and not just the couple of little niche areas that he cares about, then he would be standing up with the member for Lee, the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Port Adelaide and myself to demand action on The QEH. He would have been standing up with us, shoulder to shoulder, when his government closed without warning, without notice, The QEH western suburbs COVID testing clinic.

You would no doubt know, Mr Speaker, because it was widely publicised in the media, that the first we knew about that, the first the public knew about the closure of the COVID testing clinic at The QEH, was a sad face emoji down at The QEH. I do not even know how our friends in Hansard will publish that, but it was one of those things, a sad face emoji. It was quite telling actually. I feel so sorry for the staff down there who have been doing an exceptional job, a stunningly good job looking after our community for decades. They have had to resort to a sign on a wall, without notice from somewhere higher up the chain in SA Health and from the minister's office perhaps, to close the western suburbs vaccination clinic.

Maybe 50 metres towards the front entrance and up six flights of stairs rests a dead, empty, fully kitted-out COVID vaccination clinic. Again, if the member for Colton were serious about standing up for his community, he would be there with us demanding the opening of the western suburbs vaccination clinic. He would be demanding the opening up of a pop-up western suburbs vaccination clinic as well, because we know that communities that are in the western suburbs and suburbs that I represent are amongst the lowest vaccinated in this state.

It is not because they are cynical, it is not because they are anti-vaxers, it is not because they are somehow joining the fruitloops in Victoria talking about conspiracies: it is because they are from lower socio-economic areas, it is because they do not have their own autonomous transport, it is because English is a second language to them—all of which are factors that our public health officials know and tell us are factors that contribute to lower vaccination rates.

If we are going to be rushing towards this national plan, as the Premier seems to want to do, in terms of opening up our state later this year, then I am deeply concerned that that will be at the expense of leaving our western suburbs behind because there is no action, there is no plan and there is no consideration of opening up an effort down in our western suburbs.

In respect of this upgrade, I was very proud—not in this place at the time—to represent many hundreds and thousands of workers who work at The QEH. I was incredibly proud to see the strong, loud commitment from the then Labor government to invest directly in our QEH, to provide a space, to update and upgrade facilities that were the right thing to do for our western suburbs and also the right thing to do for those staff, for those workers who work at our public hospitals and public health facilities.

For many months—in fact, for more than a year since coming into power—the Marshall government kept telling us a number of things. They told us, 'We will back this in. We will follow through with the Labor government commitment to upgrade The QEH.' You could not fault that. But it became very clear very quickly that that was on their terms. As the member for Kaurna has already spoken about, it is only through the inquiry led by the member for Kavel that we have identified that SA Health and this government plan to cut cardiac services at The QEH. That is clear, that is unequivocal and it is provided on evidence.

We also know that we will have an unprecedented vacancy and empty space at The QEH in the old Tower Block. We know that it is empty for a very good reason, because the evidence of SA Health, the evidence of this government is that this is the poorest, the oldest and the least compliant facility anywhere in our public health system. It is a disgrace that this Tower Block will be sitting there dead, empty and vacant in the same way that the vaccination clinic currently is sitting vacant—because it is just a bridge too far.

We have seen little top-ups of capital funding into this over the last 12 months too. Frankly, that is the taxation that you pay, that is the levy that we have to pay, that the community has to pay because of the inaction of this government in getting the wheels going on this redevelopment. One thing that really grates me—and, again, I can probably forgive some of the members on the government benches—is where is the outcry from those opposite that the outpatients facility will no longer be upgraded?

For years, the government, in press releases, in media opportunities, were saying, 'Yes, the outpatients facility will be upgraded. Everything is fine, nothing to see here.' We know that was rubbish, and it was only through the evidence provided to this committee that we saw that the government had been telling porky pies to the community of the western suburbs.

I have used the outpatient facilities. Members of my family have used the outpatient facilities. Doctors and specialists and nurses are doing what they can in extraordinary circumstances there in a bottleneck. If this government were serious about health care, serious about looking after the western suburbs, they would not back away from the outpatients upgrade, they would not back away from cardiac facilities. They would do more than simply hike more out of the pockets of working western suburbs residents through car parking fees.

Motion carried.

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