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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-05-19 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Ambulance Ramping

Mr SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:08): My question is to the Premier. Premier, when will you fix ramping in South Australia?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:08): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his important question because ramping, of course, was a central issue that was top of mind for a lot of South Australians in the most recent state election only a few weeks ago. During the course of that campaign, we released a comprehensive policy that was orientated towards fixing the ramping crisis. It is important to understand the scale and the breadth of that crisis to understand our policy prescription and the way we will go about addressing it.

We know that over the course of the former Marshall Liberal government ramping increased by over 480 per cent—480 per cent. It was a dramatic escalation in ramping. It is true that ramping existed within the hospital system prior to the change of government in 2018—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Pisoni: Before COVID.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: I actually said repeatedly—

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Unley!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Ramping was present—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Lee!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —in the health system in the lead-up to the 2018 election, but then we had the 2018 election and the former government saw—

Mr Pisoni: And then we had COVID.

The SPEAKER: Member for Unley!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —an absolute explosion in ramping. The member for Unley interjects. His interjection is welcome, as always. They are normally quite considered. Of course, the member for Unley might want to avail himself of information regarding what was happening to ramping prior to COVID, and then of course—

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert! The member for Morialta!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: For the member for Unley's benefit, ramping was escalating at an extraordinary pace, and then when COVID came ramping actually went down because elective surgery was cancelled. The ramping effort that you oversaw was going—

Mr Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Morialta!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: And you were around the cabinet table, sir, so one would have thought that you would be familiar with this. But, nonetheless, ramping increased by—

Mr Tarzia interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hartley!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —over 480 per cent over the course of the government. That had a lot of South Australians worried. Ramping in and of itself I am not sure was necessarily the predominant fear and concern that South Australians had: it was more the consequences—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert! The member for Morialta!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —of ramping, and the consequences of ramping were that we saw ambulance response times become completely unacceptable. We saw a situation in South Australia where ambulance response times at the point of the change of government in 2018 were ostensibly that around about 80 to 85 per cent of the time priority 2 call-outs were met on time. So 80 to 85 per cent of the time when a priority 2 call-out was made the ambulance rolled up on time.

Mr Gardner: So when will you fix ramping?

The SPEAKER: The member for Morialta!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Then what we saw from the former government was that number fall to an abysmal level. In the first couple of weeks of this year, it went down to 33 per cent.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Hartley!

The Hon. N.D. Champion interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Taylor!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Just to put that in context, basically two times out of three when the ambulance was called—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Brown interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Florey! The Premier has the call.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Two times out of three when an ambulance was called at the beginning of this year, it didn't roll up on time. So what we did at the election was outline a comprehensive policy, which was very, very different from the former government's, which included 350 more ambulance officers, 300 additional nurses, 100 additional doctors. We are progressing that policy, we are rolling it out and we look forward to delivering on our commitments over the course of this term of government.

The SPEAKER: I'm going to turn to the leader on a supplementary.

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