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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-06-05 Daily Xml
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Southern Suburbs Health Services

Mr DIGHTON (Black) (14:16): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister update the house on new health services in the southern suburbs?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:17): I thank the member for Black for his question and for his passion about health services in the southern suburbs. Even before his election to this place, I know the member for Black has been passionate about improving access to health services in his local community.

One of the things that he came to us—to the Premier, to the Treasurer and to myself—about during his election campaign was about how we can improve access, particularly to those primary care services, in the Hallett Cove and broader community. That is why we have made a commitment, based on that advocacy from the member for Black, to a 24/7 pharmacy in the Hallett Cove/Sheidow Park/Trott Park area.

I am delighted to report to the house that we have now signed the contract to deliver that 24-hour pharmacy, which will be the fourth 24-hour pharmacy in our state. Only a year and a half ago there were zero, and now in August this year there will be our fourth available in the community. This will be delivered at the Hallett Cove shopping centre, at the TerryWhite Chemmart. We thank the TerryWhite team at Hallett Cove for their cooperation on this project. It means that people will be able to go to that pharmacy 24 hours a day to get that support.

What we can see from the first three 24/7 pharmacies that we have delivered is that it has vastly exceeded our expectations in terms of the number of services that have been able to be delivered. Whether it is in the member for King's electorate, whether it is in the member for Elder's electorate or whether it is in the member for Dunstan's electorate, at those three existing pharmacies that we have opened 270,000 services have already been provided and over 100,000 scripts have been provided after hours—hours in which those pharmacies previously were closed.

That is a huge help to people when they need it, like getting baby Panadol in the middle of the night, but also, importantly, if people can utilise virtual care services they can be sent the script immediately—any time, day or night—and then they can go and fill that script any time, day or night. That means they get that more timely health care, and obviously it is less pressure on our hospitals as well.

There have also been some 10,000 phone calls to those services after hours as well. Surveys that have been undertaken of these patients show that some 20 per cent of those people who visited after hours said that they would have visited an emergency department if that had not been available. So we are very excited to see that fourth one being delivered in August this year.

The other announcement that we have made very recently, which is exciting for the southern suburbs as well, is that we are expanding what has been a successful pilot, firstly in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, then extending to the central suburbs of Adelaide and now to the southern suburbs of Adelaide, which is a co-responder mental health model between SAPOL and our mental health nurses. Police will respond to mental health call-outs that SAPOL get with qualified mental health nurses to better respond to those people who need assistance and, in many cases, be able to get people help, other than having to go to an emergency department.

I was there with the member for Elder, who of course is the Premier's Advocate for Suicide Prevention and who has been a strong advocate for this service, when we announced this with the Treasurer at the Urgent Mental Health Care Centre, which is of course now one of a number of these different centres and pathways that we have available for people to get mental health care other than at an emergency department. Both SAPOL and our hospital teams speak very highly of the service that this has delivered. Now we will be able to see that extended to the southern suburbs as well and see this service become a permanent part of our healthcare system, which is good for the healthcare system, it's good for SAPOL and, ultimately, it's a very good outcome for those people involved in avoiding emergency departments or our corrections and justice system if they don't need to.

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