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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-04-29 Daily Xml
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Code Yellow

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (15:10): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Have any of our public hospitals declared Code Yellows this year and, if so, which hospitals, and how many times have they been forced to call an internal emergency? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: It was reported by SASMOA that the Flinders Medical Centre ED had declared a Code Yellow on 17 March. A Code Yellow means that a hospital has declared an internal emergency and every ward is over capacity or under stress.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:10): I will just firstly set out the difference between what people will be familiar with—what occurred last year—and what the member is referring to. Last year we had a system-wide Code Yellow which was a declaration by the Chief Executive of SA Health, Dr Robyn Lawrence, and that allowed a level of system coordination across the system between our hospitals, between our Ambulance Service, and between all elements of the system to deal with the significant demand that we were facing.

That has not been called. There has not been any declaration of any sort in that regard since that was lifted last year, and I am not anticipating that that will be the case in the future but, of course, that is always going to be part of the emergency response for any network across the country that would be considered in the future, but we are not anticipating that.

What the member is referring to is that an individual hospital or an individual unit may well have its own designations in terms of its demand escalation protocols. I am aware that Flinders Medical Centre for many, many years, including under our government, under the previous government, and under the previous Labor government have regularly called Code Yellows locally where demand has escalated in the emergency departments. I suspect that is what the SASMOA report that you are referring to refers to.

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