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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-05-17 Daily Xml
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International Nurses Day

Ms CLANCY (Elder) (15:19): Last Thursday was International Nurses Day, a day for us to celebrate all nurses and the incredible work they do. Nurses play such an important role in our healthcare system and, on top of what is actually in their job description, manage to do so much more. Nurses calm us, nurses show us compassion, nurses show us endless amounts of patience and nurses make us laugh when we need it most.

One long night with a very sick toddler in my arms at Flinders, it was a nurse who pulled back the blue curtain with a sandwich for me because she knew that I had not eaten for hours. When I recently ended up in the RAH in the middle of the night, it was the triage nurses who made us feel comfortable and safe in the waiting room. Nurses provided a care above and beyond what is expected of them. We must not only celebrate but acknowledge their work as the crucial community service that it is.

Last week, I had the pleasure of joining nurses and midwives at the Repat for the ceremony to seal the SA Health Nursing and Midwifery Time Capsule. This celebration was a wonderful recognition of the crucial and delicate work nurses and midwives have provided our community for generations. As a very small show of my appreciation, I returned to the Repat the following day with morning tea from our local Kytons Bakery so the nurses could celebrate International Nurses Day when they eventually got their much-deserved break.

My third visit to the Repat last week was one focused on the future. I joined the Premier, the Minister for Health and Wellbeing and Louise Miller-Frost, Labor's candidate for Boothby, to announce that this Malinauskas Labor government, in partnership with a future Albanese Labor government, would deliver an additional 24 beds at the Repat. These beds will provide a more appropriate care setting for older people in our community who, in the current system, are likely to be in a bed at Flinders for an extended period.

This partnership also extends to Flinders Medical Centre where if, and only if, Labor is successful this Saturday, we will see a long, overdue upgrade of Flinders Medical Centre, much of which remains untouched since I was born there almost 36 years ago. These 136 new hospital beds at Flinders are in addition to the beds already committed to by this Malinauskas Labor government and they will largely be provided in single rooms, providing patient privacy as well as infection control.

With an Albanese Labor government, we will also provide a major upgrade and expansion of the Margaret Tobin Centre. We will expand the intensive care unit, we will create new operating theatres, we will expand medical imaging and we will establish a brand-new eye surgery clinic. South Australians need a federal Labor government that can bring people together and work collaboratively with our state government to adequately address our community's healthcare concerns. Whether it is these plans for the Repat and Flinders, delivering a new mental health and wellbeing centre or a Medicare urgent care clinic near Flinders, Louise Miller-Frost and the federal Labor team are ready to support our plans to fix the ramping crisis.

So this Saturday, or in four sleeps as we measure time in our household, South Australians have a choice, a choice that will determine not just what the next three years look like for our country but the next generation. On Saturday, South Australia, and indeed the rest of the country, will choose between Labor's plans to invest in our health system, including in our southern suburbs, or just more of the same chaos and division from the Coalition. I think the choice is clear.

On International Nurses Day, we should not just thank the workers who provide essential care to our community, we should pledge to provide them with the best possible healthcare system to work in. I am incredibly proud of the policies we, as South Australian Labor, took to the state election and we know we can build on them in partnership with a federal Labor government.

I again thank the people of Elder for putting their faith in me and I ask that you please do the same for Louise Miller-Frost this weekend and help elect a federal Labor government.

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