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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-07-05 Daily Xml
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Question Time

COVID-19 Testing

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister provide an update on COVID-19 and influenza testing in South Australia?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:36): I thank the member for her question and particularly thank all South Australians for the role that they have taken in the course of the pandemic in turning up to get tested to make sure that they can protect the rest of the community in relation to COVID-19.

Of course, the face of the COVID-19 testing program for a long period of time has been the Victoria Park testing drive-through station. This has been where a lot of us over the past two years have gone to get our test, lining up sometimes for very lengthy periods of time. The staff there have done an incredible job in testing South Australians. Obviously, that is an area of some iconic significance for South Australia, and this new government has some other plans for some slightly faster moving vehicles that will be travelling along that track than we have seen over the past couple of years.

SA Pathology and SA Health have been working significantly over the past couple of months to make sure—

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Hammond!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —that we can transition away from using the Victoria Park racecourse to using a different site in the city to continue that testing and also make sure that that track is freed up so that the Adelaide 500 can restart later this year. I am glad to say that that work has resulted in an excellent outcome. There were a lot of negotiations with the Adelaide City Council, and I thank them for their role in helping in this regard.

As of the end of last week, testing has transitioned from the Victoria Park racetrack to Edwards Park. This is in the southern Parklands of the city, accessible off Anzac Highway. That is where people will be able to access their COVID-19 tests at the moment. I want to thank everybody involved in SA Pathology for that transition. Importantly, this keeps the same capacity of testing that was in place at the tent at Victoria Park and makes sure that we have the ability to keep that testing going. There is also the ability to overflow into the adjacent Park 22, if we need that as well into the future.

Clearly, we are facing an increased number of cases that we are expecting to see over the next few weeks. SA Pathology and SA Health are working now to make sure that they update their testing capacity and review their plans in terms of making sure that we are going to have the ability to stand up testing as we see increased numbers. Of course, we also have the ability for people to still access rapid antigen tests from our pick-up points that have been run in conjunction with the emergency services staff. It is really important that we make sure that that capacity is there, and that work is being undertaken at the moment.

Importantly, as well, there has been work undertaken by SA Pathology to step up the work they can do in terms of multiviral testing. This is a test you can get that will test for 12 different viruses, including COVID of course but also including influenza. There are a range of other viruses, such as RSV and rhinovirus, etc., and we have been able to step up significantly the number of those tests we have been able to process.

Importantly, people can use the telehealth services to GPs to then get a referral to go through the drive-through at any SA Pathology site to get access to that multivirus testing. That is particularly important for people who might have other chronic health conditions, where that other range of viruses might be more important to know about than if you are, say, a younger person without chronic health conditions.

It is hugely important that we thank not only the people who are doing that testing but also the people behind the scenes in the laboratory for putting that together, and I want to thank all of them for their hard work.

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