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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-02-22 Daily Xml
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Ambulance Ramping

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:09): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister outline what lessons he is hoping to learn from the Queensland government when he travels there on Thursday? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: One reason provided to the opposition for the minister's early departure from parliament this week to travel to Queensland was that he wanted to learn how Queensland is tackling ramping. It should be noted that the Queensland Labor government has delivered some of the worst ramping in the nation.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister has the call.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier is called to order. Minister.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Elizabeth! Order! The Premier is called to order. Member for Cheltenham!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for West Torrens is warned. Minister.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:09): I am glad that we are finally onto the big issues here in terms of what flights we are taking to Queensland tomorrow.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Morialta! Member for Unley! The member for Morialta is warned. The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: The opposition is well aware—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Newland!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: The opposition is well aware that there is a Health Ministers' Meeting in Queensland over the next couple of days. We appropriately have asked for leave to go to that meeting. The pair has been granted by the opposition, which is funny that they come and complain about it now.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Elizabeth! The Treasurer is called to order. Member for Badcoe!

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert is warned. Minister.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Upon looking at the flights, we saw that the flights would mean, to get to the official function, we would have to miss question time in any regard tomorrow, so hence we have asked for the pair. I thought, while we are doing that, we should take the opportunity to look at other systems. I have been doing this consistently around the country. We have done this in Sydney already—

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert is warned for a second time.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —which is a Liberal-Nationals government. I have been to Sydney, investigated, looked at hospitals and met with clinicians there. For a couple of hours before the ministerial meeting happens, we will be doing that in Brisbane and meeting clinicians. I think we are going to the new Gold Coast hospital and meeting with Queensland Health department there.

I am very happy to outline why we are going a couple of hours earlier, which the opposition have given their full support to by providing a pair for that to happen. I make no apologies at all for talking to clinicians around the country about fixing these very complex issues. As has been rightly pointed out by the shadow minister, the whole country is confronting these issues, and it is important—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Schubert! Member for Morialta! Member for Chaffey! Order! The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Thank you, sir. It is important that we meet with clinicians around the country to learn about initiatives that are working or not working to make sure that we can put the best possible policies in place here in South Australia. That's exactly what we are doing. This week we have been very busy announcing policy after policy, development after development, in terms of investing in our healthcare system here. We are not doing the approach that was tried and failed by those opposite, which was privatising, redundancies of frontline nurses, bringing in the corporate liquidators.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Morphett is warned.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: That led to a rapid increase of 485 per cent in South Australia, and now we are reversing that by investing in our health services. We were at Lyell McEwin Hospital yesterday announcing a doubling of our commitment, that is starting next month, in doubling the number of beds. We are increasing even the number of beds in the already larger emergency department there. We have more dialysis chairs that we have announced there as well.

At Modbury Hospital, the Premier and I and various members were there on the weekend in terms of progress on the new mental health facilities that are progressing, more than doubling the number of mental health beds, which we know is a critical issue in terms of delays in our healthcare system.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: We also announced a new site for the Woodville ambulance station—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Premier is called to order.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —to make sure people can get faster response times in the western suburbs. Today I was with Minister Butler, who announced new urgent care centre investments across Adelaide. What did we hear from those opposite—support for that? No, they have come out opposing those measures, calling it window-dressing, those urgent care centres which are so important.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Badcoe! Order! I see the member for Florey.

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