House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-05-19 Daily Xml

Contents

Ambulance Ramping

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:25): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Will the minister advise the house how frequently he receives ambulance ramping data from his department or from the South Australian Ambulance Service?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:26): I congratulate the member on her election and her appointment as the shadow health minister, and I see she is already providing good advice to the Leader of the Opposition, whether he likes it or not.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for West Torrens, member for Lee! The member for Florey is warned.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: I was going to check my phone for an important reason. I want to give the shadow minister a hint because I was the shadow minister for four years—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hammond is warned.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —thankfully only four, not one day longer—and, as the shadow minister and now as the minister, I am able to get minute-by-minute updates on the ramping situation in South Australia because we actually have a dashboard where this is all put online for the whole public to see. So you can just log on sahealth.sa.gov.au—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Lee, member for West Torrens!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —and you can find out what the situation is right now.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Schubert!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: I find this situation very helpful in terms of my understanding of the health system and how it is operating. As I outlined in my ministerial statement, it is under significant pressure at the moment and I would encourage the shadow minister to utilise the resources that have been available for some time.

I think it was back when Minister Hill was the minister that the dashboards were made publicly available so everybody could see all the data, minute by minute, including ambulance delays at hospitals. I think that is a very welcome opportunity, whether you are the minister, whether you are the shadow minister or whether you are a member of the public.

Importantly, this information is also useful in terms of if you need to go to hospital, then you can see what the situation is in different hospitals at that time. If you live between two different hospitals, you may choose to go to one emergency department over the other by having a look at the emergency department dashboard which is made available for people online.

So I would encourage everybody to have a look at that information, have a look at that minute-by-minute data that we made completely, freely available and I hope that that information is of use to the shadow minister.