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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-04-30 Daily Xml
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Public Hospital Report Card

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:18): My question is to the Premier. Has the Premier read the Australian Medical Association's 2024 Public Hospital Report Card and, if so, what action is he taking to address the concerns raised in that report? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: The AMA report published on 19 April 2024 stated, and I quote:

There are surely few times in history when it has been so worrisome to be a person who may need care in South Australia’s public hospitals...South Australians continue to suffer the health ramifications of living in one of the worst-performing hospital jurisdictions in this country.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:19): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. We are certainly aware of the report put out by the AMA last week, which was put out deliberately by the AMA to time with a ministerial meeting that we had of all health ministers in Brisbane, where a key topic of discussion was the renegotiation of National Health Reform funding arrangements which are critical for all the states and territories in terms of making sure that we can improve the delivery of health services in every state and territory.

We had a press conference that morning, where the federal minister and every state and territory minister were asked by the journalists in Queensland on that day about the respective comments in each of the AMA report cards for each state, which predictably were of a similar nature for each state. There is no doubt that there are significant challenges in terms of delivery of health care across the country, and that is why we are taking such considerable action in this state to reinvest in our healthcare services, to expand our healthcare services, to hire additional clinicians in our hospitals and to repair damage that has been there for the past few years that we are seeking to repair.

You only have to look, as the Premier said yesterday, at what we have done at Flinders Medical Centre, where we have fast-tracked beds to expand the capacity of that hospital for the first time in many years, taking out what was an administrative space at that hospital and converting it into brand new, high-level quality patient care and accommodation to expand those services. Also what we announced yesterday were the latest workforce statistics, which show a massive expansion in terms of our workforce numbers of some 1,400 additional clinicians—doctors, nurses, ambos and allied health professionals—working across our healthcare system.

As the Premier also outlined, we are expanding the number of beds available in our healthcare system. We see 150 coming on board this year and 130 next year, which is a real step-up in terms of our hospital capacity. Of course, as was discussed on that day, and as was discussed in terms of what the AMA put out when they released their report card, we also need a fair funding arrangement and reform at the national level as well.

So while the Treasurer continues to put more and more resources from the state revenues into our hospital system, we also want to ensure that the federal government is paying their fair share in terms of making sure that they are contributing to the expansion of hospital resources as they are required, as well as making sure that primary care is addressed, which is a contributory factor in every state, where we see people no longer being able to see GPs in a timely way or in a bulk-billed way as they previously were able to. Also, there are issues we face in terms of discharging people from hospitals into aged care, which are getting worse and worse, leading to more and more pressure on our hospital system as well.

So we will keep investing in our hospital system. There are more expansions of beds to come this year at The QEH. We are not only expanding beds at that hospital but also expanding the emergency department and other facilities, which are coming online this year, as well as Lyell McEwin Hospital seeing 48 extra beds coming online. That hospital has been doing great work just in the past six months, seeing a 45 per cent reduction in their ramping. We have additional beds coming on board at the Repat later this year as well. All of this will contribute to making sure that there is more capacity to treat people in a more timely way.

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