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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-11-26 Daily Xml
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ENTERPRISE PATIENT ADMINISTRATION SYSTEM

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (15:28): I seek leave to make an explanation prior to directing a question to the minister representing the Minister for Health on the subject of the IT project EPAS.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Members will be aware of significant concerns being raised about the minister's and SA Health's management of the $422 million EPAS IT project within SA Health. In recent times—approximately May or June of this year—the minister and SA Health appointed a new senior bureaucrat, Mr Michael Long from North America, at $3,000 a day to provide oversight for SA Health's eHealth projects.

There are significant concerns still being expressed to the Liberal Party about the EPAS project direction and Mr Long's management of those projects. I note also Mr Long's schedule now to leave SA Health in February next year when his original term was meant to expire in November of this year. My questions to the minister are:

1. Have any SA Health employees associated with the EPAS project written to SA Health CEO David Swan or Mr Long himself indicating that they do not support the new direction of the EPAS project and, if so, how many employees have done so, and what was the response from SA Health CEO or Mr Long to those concerns?

2. Has any person written to SA Health CEO Mr Swan indicating a lack of confidence in Mr Long's abilities to manage the eHealth programs in SA Health and, if so, what was Mr Swan's response to that concern?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (15:30): I thank the honourable member for his most important questions but really, again, he comes into this place asking the wrong questions. He comes into this place asking questions about EPAS—I think he said—when he should be asking questions about how this government has rebuilt every public hospital in the city. It should be a question about—and not from the man who actually privatised a hospital, let's get it quite clear, not from this person over here who closed down 45 schools, and privatised a hospital, and he comes in here with the effrontery of asking a question of the Minister for Health and Ageing.

He should be asking questions about how we've rebuilt Noarlunga; how we've rebuilt Flinders Medical Centre; how we've rebuilt the Lyell McEwin Hospital; and how we are rebuilding the new RAH, the biggest most important improvement in the health system that we have seen in this state in 100 years. He should be asking questions about the great achievements that this government will have in the health portfolios but, no, the man who comes in here, who privatised hospitals—that is what he did, he privatised hospitals—doesn't get it.

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