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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-02-08 Daily Xml
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Ardrossan Community Hospital

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (14:41): I have a question for the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister provide an update to my community as to the future of the Ardrossan hospital? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will offer a little explanation.

Leave granted.

Mr ELLIS: At the end of last year, the board of the Ardrossan Community Hospital resolved to close the accident and emergency service because of the difficulties running it. Since then, a number of options have been presented to government about the future of health care in Ardrossan.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:42): I thank the member for Narungga for this good question and for his interest and passion about healthcare services on Yorke Peninsula and in his electorate more broadly. In relation to the Ardrossan Community Hospital, as members may know, this is a small hospital which is a private community hospital. It is one of those which stayed outside of SA Health when a number of those private community hospitals came into the South Australian Health Commission many decades ago.

As the member has outlined, it has been under financial pressure for the past few years. The government has continued to provide funding to the Ardrossan Community Hospital of, I believe, $180,000 per year to help operations at that hospital. However, it has been under financial pressure and a range of other staffing pressures.

Since our last discussion in the house and last update on this matter, there has been some positive interim news in that the commonwealth government, which is obviously the predominant body in charge of aged care in this country, has provided assistance in relation to surge staffing for the Ardrossan Community Hospital. That has really been able to stabilise their staffing and their operations for the majority of what they do, which is providing aged-care services for their community.

I dare say that perhaps some of the best views of aged care anywhere in the state are available from the Ardrossan Community Hospital. Perhaps equal, I think the Tailem Bend hospital has some very good views as well. The residents who receive those services are obviously very appreciative of them, and we obviously want to make sure that they are maintained. We appreciate that support that has been provided from the commonwealth government.

In addition to that, the commonwealth government has also supported the Ardrossan Community Hospital with undertaking a further review, which I understand has been done by Deloitte at the moment, looking at options for the future of the hospital. That has been provided to the board or is set to be provided to the board, and the board will consider its options.

From a state government perspective, we have been in discussions with them, predominantly through the Yorke and Northern Local Health Network and its board, about the future of those services and the potential for what options there could be, whether it continues operations under its current structure, whether there could be another provider who could provide those services or whether there is some future in terms of working more closely with SA Health. We are continuing those discussions. We will obviously continue them in the context of that report that is set to be received by the board from Deloitte through the federal government and the further options that will be considered.

We also have a hospital 15 minutes up the road at Maitland, which provides services across the central Yorke Peninsula region as well, but obviously for people living in Ardrossan the hospital and the aged-care facility are very important. We will continue to work with them, and I suspect over the course of coming months, as that report is received and considered by the board, there will be further discussions with the Yorke and Northern Local Health Network and the government more broadly on future options for the hospital.

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