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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-11-14 Daily Xml
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Paediatric Cochlear Implant Program

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:20): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Have young adults been contacted about the cochlear implant program at the Women's and Children's Hospital? If so, when was the minister first advised of that? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: The final report of the Independent Governance Review into the Paediatric Cochlear Implant Program stated that it was decided that children who were now 18 years old would not be included and that this cohort—now young adults—were never contacted to inform them of any mapping concerns. However, the Budget and Finance Committee was told last week that 55 young adults were now being contacted about the cochlear implant program.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:20): I am very happy to clarify the situation for the member. As members would know, we released in full the external independent governance report in relation to the Paediatric Cochlear Implant Program. That report made very clear the extent of how far this issue goes back, to at least 2006. That involved a significant number of people, including many who will now be adults because of the time at which they had their implants put in place. Clearly that was many, many years ago and they are now adults.

So there is a cohort of people who were always very clear, since the release of that report, that we were going back to everybody since 2006, offering them the ability to be part of an independent review by interstate provider NextSense, who we are bringing in to offer individual reviews for anybody who is keen to do so. That is obviously something that is up to people, whether they want to do it or not.

In addition to that, the Women's and Children's Hospital have now made clear that they are now offering to people even further back—to identify if there is anybody going back to 1991 when the program was first initiated—whether anybody who had their implants at that time would like to be part of that review. That is something that I think all members of the house would agree is very prudent to do. I have certainly said that all members who are part of the program would be offered a NextSense review.

The specific numbers that were mentioned in the Budget and Finance Committee I didn't have at the time that we gave the ministerial statement, but I am very happy to make sure that those are provided to make sure that we are very clear about this. The numbers of those additional 55 people between 1991 and 2006—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Minister, you've got the call.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —the Women's and Children's Hospital are now going through the process of trying to identify the records of all those people, and obviously that goes back to 1991, over 30 years ago. There are a number of IT systems—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Badcoe and the member for Schubert will cease their exchange.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —now having to obtain those details to offer those people a review. It's very important to note that there is no evidence that people between 1991 and 2006 have been affected but, out of an abundance of caution, the Women's and Children's Hospital Network are now going back to offer those people who are part of the program the ability to get an external review—somebody from interstate to review the mapping of their implant. I think that is something that all members should be supporting.

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