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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-06-27 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Northern Adelaide Local Health Network

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:12): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister explain the performance of emergency departments in the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: The 2023-24 state budget shows that only 19 per cent of patients presenting with an emergency to hospitals in the north are being seen within the clinically recommended time frame of 10 minutes, backwards from 48 per cent the year prior.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:12): I thank the member for Schubert for her question. The member references whether or not the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network is meeting within that recommended time. What she doesn't mention is that for the full four years of the previous government they didn't meet that recommended time either—which is very interesting.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Florey! Member for Newland! Member for Unley! The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: As the Premier outlined—

Ms Savvas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Newland!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —we are a government that acknowledges there are issues in our healthcare system that need to be addressed. We aren't doing what was the previous plan—which was cutting frontline staff, making nurses redundant during a global pandemic, bringing in corporate liquidators to cut the budget. What we are doing instead is hiring additional doctors and nurses and expanding our hospitals and putting in place more beds.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Morialta is on a final warning.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Schubert! The minister has the call. Order! Member for Hartley, we will come to you and your adornments today.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: When it comes to the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network and the Lyell McEwin Hospital and Modbury Hospital, what we need is additional inpatient beds—and that's exactly what we are delivering and what our plan is to deliver. Of course, we can't click our fingers and put in place these beds because there were no plans for these beds to be put in place when we came to office, but it's great news that anyone can come up—

Ms Stinson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Badcoe!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —to the Lyell McEwin Hospital—

Ms Clancy interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Elder! The minister has the call.

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Schubert! You have asked the question, the minister is answering.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: It's great news that anyone can now go to the Lyell McEwin Hospital and see the crane that's massively at the Lyell McEwin Hospital, which signals that construction has started on 48 extra beds at the Lyell McEwin Hospital.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Badcoe! Member for Adelaide! The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Anybody here who is serious about this issue understands that its critical component in terms of making sure that people can either get responses in the community to 000 calls through our ambulances, or people who arrive at our emergency departments can be seen on time, is making sure that the inpatient capacity is there so that people don't get stuck inside our emergency departments waiting for a bed.

That is the critical component. It means that when people get stuck waiting for a bed they can't come in from the waiting room, they can't come in from the ambulance and clearly people then don't get seen on time. That's why we need those 48 additional beds at Lyell McEwin, that's why we need those 550 additional beds right across the system—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —and that is what we are delivering. There is no alternative strategy, there is no alternative plan whatsoever—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Badcoe is warned! The member for Florey is warned!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: The only alternative seems to be going back to the bad old days of cuts, cuts, cuts—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —of making our frontline staff redundant in our healthcare system, as opposed to what we are doing—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Minister, please be seated.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Morialta can depart under 137A and the member for Newland can join him—for the remainder of question time. The minister has the call.

The honourable members for Morialta and Newland having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: It is fantastic to see that development happening at the Lyell McEwin Hospital, and that will soon be joined by additional beds that will be built—44 additional mental health beds—at Modbury Hospital as well. We recognise that a critical component of access block and bed block in the system is people waiting for mental health beds in our system as well. To get people treated faster at the front door we need those additional beds at the back door, and that's exactly what we are delivering.

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