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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-05-31 Daily Xml
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Regional Hospital Security

Ms PRATT (Frome) (14:56): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Will the minister commit to fund security guards at the Riverland General Hospital and, if so, when? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms PRATT: It was reported yesterday that nurses on night shift at the Riverland General Hospital in Berri were forced to call police at 4am while ducking punches and projectiles. The entry doors were hit and cracked, and there was no security guard on site. Nearly 1,000 people have signed a petition calling for a safe workplace and an end to violence.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:57): This is obviously an important issue when it comes to the safety and security of staff right across the health system. I was concerned to see the report yesterday from the ANMF of an incident which occurred at the Riverland regional hospital at Berri. It was a very concerning incident, and I am always shocked when we have this sort of behaviour happening to our incredible healthcare workers who are going out of their way to provide services to the public, that they should have to be subjected to such situations happening in our hospital system.

I have asked the relevant local health network, the Riverland Mallee Coorong Local Health Network, to look into this incident as a matter of urgency and provide me with a full briefing in relation to what occurred on that site. The initial briefing I have had confirms the statement that the LHN and the CEO released to the media, but I think I need a full briefing in relation to what has occurred there.

However, we do know that we need to improve safety and security for staff right across the board. Since we have come to government, in only 14 months we have already put in place security guards in two of our regional hospitals that did not have them in place previously under the previous government—at the Port Lincoln hospital, where there have been a number of assaults happening over a period of time, a number of years, and there have been calls for many years for security guards to be put in place. They were not. We have now put security guards in place there. We have also done that at the Mount Gambier hospital, having 24-hour security guards there.

We have also committed with the ANMF and have put, as part of an enterprise bargaining agreement, a commitment to implement the 10-point plan in terms of protecting our nurses, which is consistent with what has been put in place successfully in Victoria. It was something where I was surprised that the previous minister had refused to do so. We are now working in partnership with the ANMF to do that.

I will keep working with the ANMF on this issue. I will get a full briefing in relation to the specific issues that happened, that are pointed to in the Riverland regional hospital. We will keep working with our local health networks. Of course, under the Health Care Act changes that were brought in under the previous government, particularly in regional areas they have their own independent boards, governing boards that manage their resources and their local management of their health services. But we will keep working with them to make sure, as best as we possibly can, that we improve the situation for our staff.

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