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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-08-31 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Royal Adelaide Hospital

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:10): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Does the minister guarantee that construction works of the emergency department waiting room at the Royal Adelaide Hospital will be completed by October this year? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: It has been publicly confirmed that a transportable is being used as a temporary waiting room and triage centre while the RAH ED waiting room undergoes a construction. On 18 August, the Central Adelaide Local Health Network Interim Chief Director, Rachael Kay, said on FIVEaa, 'We hope by the end of October to be able to open the new waiting room.'

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:10): Certainly the advice I have is that that's on track for October, for that that project to be complete. This project is important. This has been designed by our clinicians. The clinicians have looked at contemporary models that are operating in emergency departments across the country, looking at innovative models in terms of how to best maintain flow through the emergency department and, importantly, allowing an area for fast track of people, to be able to start their work in terms of blood tests or other pathology that might be required, or other tests might be required as people first come into the emergency department, which means that ultimately their treatment can be faster and the length of time that they spend in the emergency department can be faster.

We have certainly supported the clinicians in terms of the work that they have identified to do. We thank people for their patience while those works need to be done. The works have been funded through the Health's Charitable Gifts Fund—donations to the hospital—and we think that, based on the feedback we have had from our frontline clinicians, that will provide a benefit in terms of improving people's experience as people get through the emergency department.

Of course, that is not the whole answer to the picture. Of course, we know that is just one piece of the puzzle that needs to be done to address the issues that we face in terms of our hospital system. However, we think that, when we have a proposal that is put forward by the clinicians in a sensible way where they have done the research, that deserves to be supported.

But, of course, we know that we need the throughput through the hospital. We know that one of the issues we have, and a really significant issue that leads to ramping and that leads to the delayed response times, is the people who get stuck in the emergency departments waiting for a bed because there are no beds for them to get to.

So the vast majority of our investments and capital infrastructure are about creating that additional capacity elsewhere in the hospital system. Particularly one of those issues that faces the Royal Adelaide and the Central Adelaide Local Health Network that is very significant is in terms of mental health patients, who spend sometimes days in the emergency department because there are not enough mental health beds.

That is why a very significant amount of the extra investments that we are making is in terms of additional mental health beds to enable those patients to get the treatment they need for very serious mental health conditions in appropriate wards, meaning that they are not stuck in the emergency department and people can continue to flow through the emergency department and use those beds.

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