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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-11-30 Daily Xml
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Women's and Children's Hospital

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:28): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. What is the minister's response to details outlined in the College of Intensive Care Medicine's recent accreditation report of the Women's and Children's Hospital. With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: A report publicly released moments ago from the College of Intensive Care Medicine states:

The committee determined that the intensive care unit at the Adelaide Women's and Children's Hospital cannot continue to be accredited for training in intensive care medicine by the college as it falls substantially short of expectations on several fronts—

with The Advertiser reporting that the ICU is significantly understaffed and overcrowded, with sick children fighting for their life left without a doctor in sight.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Adelaide is called to order.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Adelaide is warned. The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:29): Absolutely we have released the report. This morning I was asked if we would make the report public and I have asked the Women's and Children's Health Network to make that report public and now that report is public and that's what the shadow minister is quoting from.

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Absolutely it's how you got it because we released that report publicly today. This is, as I said, a serious issue that we need to address. We have already committed, because we saw this need, 48 extra doctors. Where did we get the 48 extra doctors—

Mrs Hurn: When are you going to fix it?

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert is called to order.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: The question is: what are we doing about extra doctors? I say that we are committing extra doctors, and, 'Well, what are you doing?' We are committing those extra doctors because—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Schubert is on a final warning. Member for Chaffey, you are warned for a final time. The member for Giles knows much better. The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: The commitment of 48 extra doctors is because we have listened to the doctors at the hospital. The Medical Staff Society at the hospital did work over the past two years in terms of looking at what additional doctors were needed across the hospital, particularly in terms of paediatric medicine areas, to bring the staffing levels up to an acceptable level, to make sure not only that patients could get an acceptable level of care but also that appropriate training, education and research could happen. That's where these 48 extra doctors came from.

That proposal was put to the former government and to the former opposition. We decided to take action and made it one of our commitments at the election. Unfortunately, we didn't see that commitment from the previous government. As I said, this is an area that has been raised time after time after time over the past three years, and we are now taking action. It was back in 2019, on 21 October, when these issues were raised by over 200 doctors at the Women's and Children's Hospital in an open letter that they wrote. They said:

The universal concern, expressed by all medical staff, is that many services that our community (a catchment of [approximately] 2 million [people], in a developed country) should expect to receive from a specialist women's and children's hospital, seem unachievable in South Australia.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Schubert! Member for Frome!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: It continues:

The resulting adverse effect on the safety and quality of the care we can provide has become increasingly hard to justify to our patients and the community.

Ms Pratt interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Frome!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: It continues:

The [Medical Staff Society] wishes to ensure that decision-makers are fully aware of unintended consequences of making cost savings our ongoing primary focus.

That is what the Medical Staff Society said back in 2019.

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Schubert!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: They raised those concerns with the previous government time after time after time and they didn't do anything. They didn't address these issues—

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —and that's why we have committed extra doctors, including to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit. What did the previous government do?

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Chaffey!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: They did absolutely nothing in terms of addressing issues of the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit.

Ms Pratt interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Frome, you are warned.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: This is why we are committed, and we are rolling out and hiring those additional staff. Some of them have been hired already, but there's a forward plan for all those additional staff to be hired across the hospital.

Now that we have this report, we will be taking immediate action, as well, to make sure we implement those recommendations and make sure that kids can get the care they need but that we accredit as well, and make sure we have the appropriate training for a future workforce—because we are hiring additional doctors in this government, and we want to make sure that training can continue.

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert, but noting that she must now be on five warnings.

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