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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-02-27 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Ambulance Ramping

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (14:43): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Health and Wellbeing.

Leave granted.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: On 6 November 2018, ramping in South Australian hospitals was reported as the worst on record. The Ambulance Employees Association said, and I quote:

Sunday was a very bad day and we thought it couldn't be worse, we were wrong, yesterday was the worst [day] we've ever seen, it was an absolute shocker.

The association went on to say and, again, I quote:

If we can't respond quickly to a priority one or two then lives are at risk, there's no doubt about that.

On 7 November, the Minister for Health and Wellbeing was asked about these comments and responded:

The fact of the matter is that there has been some data which has shown improvement in recent weeks.

My questions to the minister are:

1. Does the minister still stand by his comments that, right in the middle of the cluster of nine deaths, improvements were being made?

2. Was the minister in any way aware of the cluster of nine deaths when he made those comments on 7 November?

3. What were the dates of each of the deaths in the cluster of nine deaths?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:45): I thank the honourable member for his question. The member wants to quote Mr Phil Palmer in relation to ramping. I would also like to do the same. Phil Palmer talked about the fact that a number of factors have impacted negatively on ambulances. This was a comment in, I think, yesterday's media. He said that there have been a number of factors, that Transforming Health is certainly one of them and that 'there were some bad ideas about downgrading hospitals and we predicted that would create problems'. He said:

I stood on the steps of the Repat, protesting the closure of that, because I could see that would contribute to reducing capacity and therefore increase the chance of ramping.

In November 2017, the former Labor government closed the Repatriation General Hospital. Going into the 2008 calendar year, we faced a hospital network with a net loss of more than 100 beds in the southern network. But that wasn't the end of it. Also in the middle of 2017, they closed the Oakden Older Persons Mental Health facility, after a decade of neglect and abuse. That led to, again, about another 40 acute beds out of the system. Phil Palmer went on to talk about the problems that had been created by the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.

It is important to be clear that last year, 2018, was always going to be a challenge in relation to the capacity of the system because your government closed more than 140 beds. The Labor Party likes to cherrypick figures. In relation to October figures for priority one cases, for example, they highlighted 13 October 2018, which showed a 28 per cent target rate for priority one. If you are going to cherrypick dates, comparatively on 17 October—four days later—there was 100 per cent of priority one cases responded to within the recommended time frames.

Certainly, there are challenging days, as Mr Palmer and other union leaders recognised in correspondence to me recently. There are factors, such as the unseasonal weather, which has increased demand. The system does have surges from time to time, but this government is committed to developing the capacity of the system to respond to surges so that we eliminate ramping.

The former Labor government seemed to think that ramping was okay. It is a philosophy that became well entrenched in Victoria and it's a philosophy that the former Labor government brought into South Australia. That was a tragic day. It was tragic that the community was expected to tolerate that as a capacity management measure. You can be assured that this government will never accept ramping: it takes ambulances off the road, it adds stress to the role of ambulance officers and it undermines clear, patient-focused care.

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