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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-04-03 Daily Xml
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Rapid Off-Load Procedures

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:35): My question is again to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Are rapid off-load procedures standard practice at hospitals under this government? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: A SafeWork SA Entry Permit Holder Report of FMC submitted by SASMOA on 17 March reported, and I quote:

Rapid offload had been requested by the ramp on a number of occasions but there was no space in the ED—we told them 'we are drowning'.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:36): I welcome, all day, if the member wants to ask me questions from SASMOA's report that they have submitted, because it goes to why we are building these additional beds at Flinders Medical Centre, it goes to why we are building a bigger healthcare system: so that we've got more capacity. What happens is patients who need a ward bed get stuck in the emergency department and that's why we are building those additional beds.

You can see out the front of Flinders Medical Centre construction works are now underway on that new seven-storey building that will be built out the front of Flinders Medical Centre, part of our plan for 160 extra beds between Flinders Medical Centre and the Repat site. A number of those are in place already—I think in the order of about 50—but with over 100 more to come down the track, and that's to address this very significant issue.

Of course, at the same time, we are working to try to address the issues with the federal aged-care system, which are meaning that more of our beds are getting clogged at the other end for people who are ready to be discharged.

Mr TEAGUE: Point of order: standing order 98(a)—that's the second question in a row on this point. The question is very much a question about the present. It's not about 'coulda, woulda, shoulda', it's not about the future, it's about the present circumstance: is this standard practice right now?

The SPEAKER: I have been listening very carefully and it seems like he has been talking for a lot longer than 10 seconds as the clock would indicate. He is actually referring to a report, and that was what was referenced in the question, so the minister can resume his answer.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: As we are expanding those hospitals, as we are putting in that additional capacity to make sure that our teams have the ability to get people from the emergency department into the ward, our teams are working as hard as they can to deal with the patients that present to our emergency department, whether through ambulance or through the waiting room, to make sure they can be seen as fast as possible with the current bed constraints that we have, while those construction works are underway.

I would contrast that with the report that was not a union report but an independent report commissioned by the previous Liberal government, the Monaghan report, into what happened at Flinders Medical Centre before the last election under the previous government, which said that the works that the previous government had done to Flinders Medical Centre actually made the situation worse. It made the situation worse for patients by converting inpatient beds to emergency department beds. It made no difference; in fact, it potentially made ramping worse at the hospital. That's an independent report that was commissioned by the previous government.

We are not just changing the label of beds from 'inpatient' to 'emergency department'—we are not going down that path—we are actually building additional capacity. We are actually building expansions to our hospitals and we are putting in additional doctors and nurses and paramedics and allied health professionals to care for patients in our system.

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