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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-07-06 Daily Xml
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Emergency Department Patient

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:43): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Has the government commissioned an independent review into the case of a woman left lying on the floor of an emergency department for five hours awaiting medical treatment? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: Several weeks ago, an independent review was commissioned to investigate, when 92-year-old Mrs Wortley was left to wait shivering outside the Lyell McEwin Hospital ED, but it is not clear whether an independent review has been launched to investigate why a lady was left to wait for five hours on the floor of an emergency department.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:43): This is the subject of a review. The Premier committed to that when this came to light. Essentially, what happened is that—

Mrs Hurn: Independent?

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert is on two warnings.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —one of the issues in place is the blockages in the health system, as I explained in the previous answer, and that was absolutely clearly unacceptable, the wait times people were facing in the emergency department on that day at the Flinders Medical Centre.

Clearly, this is a situation that is happening at other emergency departments where people are waiting long periods of time to be seen in the emergency department, either in ambulances or in the waiting room as well. That is why we need to provide additional capacity elsewhere in the health system to make sure that we can get patients treated sooner in the emergency department.

This is an issue that I have been speaking about with the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network and its chairman of the board and acting CEO. They are undertaking a clinical governance review in relation to what happened in that instance. Clearly, it is unacceptable because what we don't want to see is people in discomfort like that who are waiting far too long to be seen.

I understand that the patient was categorised as a category 3 patient, but clearly the wait time that she experienced was a lot longer than was absolutely what we want to see in our healthcare system. The latest update I had in relation to this case was that they had still been trying to contact the patient herself to discuss this with her.

I know that the shadow minister circulated images in relation to this. I am not sure whether she has had the opportunity to speak to the patient. If she had spoken to the patient and got her permission before she circulated those photos, then we would very much welcome her to discuss that with us. We want to discuss that with her as part of the review, because clearly the patient is involved in that review.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: You didn't speak to her?

Mrs Hurn: They put it on Facebook.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: But you did not speak to her?

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Clearly, the shadow minister had not spoken to the patient involved before she decided to circulate this image publicly. That is clearly, I think, a surprising development that has come out of question time today.

From SA Health's perspective, the appropriate thing to do is to make sure that we get in contact with that patient to discuss the review protocols that will be underway. Clearly, the shadow minister's view is that we should discuss it in question time and in the media: we would prefer to discuss it with the patient. If the shadow minister has been in contact, and it sounds like she hasn't, then it would be helpful if she could provide those details and we can make sure that we can talk to that patient as part of that review to make sure that she is involved in that process.

This will be the subject of a review. It clearly is unacceptable. This government has commitments in place and budget announcements in place to massively expand the size of the Flinders Medical Centre—136 extra beds into the Flinders Medical Centre—whereas the previous government's investment in the Flinders Medical Centre was to close inpatient beds to open emergency department beds.

We actually want additional beds to deal with the blockages in the system that ultimately lead to people not getting care on time, which is what we unfortunately saw in that instance, and sadly there are many other instances where people wait unfortunately long times as well.

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