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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-08-24 Daily Xml
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Patient Care, Royal Adelaide Hospital

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:30): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Health and Wellbeing about the treatment of mental health and disability patients in the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Leave granted.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: On ABC radio this morning, Kelly Vincent, a former member of the Legislative Council and well-known and highly respected disability advocate, gave a harrowing account of her treatment after being admitted into the Royal Adelaide Hospital for various health issues, including mental health. Ms Vincent recounted that she had to wait three days to be bathed and even to have her teeth cleaned. She said that she felt powerless and helpless. The treatment has again raised questions about the care of mental health patients in the RAH. My question to the minister is: what action is he going to take to address the concerns raised by Ms Vincent?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:31): I thank the honourable member for his question. First of all, let me stress that I apologise to Ms Vincent that the care that she was provided did not meet her needs and for the distress it caused her and her family.

On the way the honourable member structured his question, my understanding of what Kelly said on the radio this morning was not that her concern was primarily about the mental health care she received but the disability support she received while she was receiving mental health care. In that regard, it is an ongoing challenge for health systems around Australia to make sure that they support people with disability to be able to access the range of health services they are entitled to, including mental health services.

SA Health hospitals need to engage their disability liaison officers and staff within the ward to support people with disability to be able to be accommodated in the hospitals. I appreciate that that is not without challenges. People with disability have very diverse needs, and particularly in some of the smaller facilities and country hospitals they may not have the specialised equipment that some of the metropolitan hospitals might have to help support people with disability.

I also acknowledge that that challenge is exacerbated by the COVID environment. Hospitals often have to put into place arrangements to ensure the safety of both the staff and the patients in the context of COVID. There is a particular problem with the interface between the NDIS and the hospitals in relation to support workers. My recollection is that in this morning's comment Kelly mentioned that, during a previous experience, a previous episode of health care, the hospital itself provided the support worker that she needed to receive the support she needed while she was receiving health care.

My recollection of this morning's comments is that she has a support worker but that the agency of the support worker doesn't allow its support workers to work in hospitals. I have also heard of situations where the disability workers and their agency are happy to work in hospitals but the hospitals are not willing to provide them access. So there is a lot of work to be done to make sure that people with disabilities are provided holistic care so that they can have genuine health access and they can genuinely, in a dignified way, receive the care that they need.

My understanding is that Kelly's concerns about the care she received were not about the mental health care she was getting from the team in the ward but that the demeaning nature of her situation in not being able to access toilets and so forth was disrupting her recovery, and I can fully understand that.

It is certainly an issue that this government is actively pursuing through the health ministers meetings. We are next month engaging the federal minister for disability, Linda Reynolds. One of the key focuses is how can we better improve the interface between the NDIS and the health system? The basic position of the NDIS, as I understand it—and the disability minister might correct me—is that the NDIS view is that it is not their responsibility to provide support for patients in public hospitals.

I think we need to be flexible because sometimes support workers for people with a disability can have extremely specialised skills, and to be able to maintain the continuity of support when a person transitions into health care can often be extremely valuable. So I think we need to have some flexibility. That is something I will be keen to talk to Minister Reynolds about, not necessarily on 17 September, because there are some—shall we say there is no shortage of issues that need to be unpacked in this area.

I must say I am looking forward to that meeting very much, doubly because of the reports of the honourable Minister for Human Services, who has spoken highly of the leadership of Minister Reynolds in the NDIS portfolio since she was appointed to it.

Certainly, I thought that the Hon. Kelly Vincent's contribution on the ABC this morning was characteristic of Kelly's strong, effective advocacy—a very rational presentation of the issues. I am certainly glad to hear that the clinicians at the Royal Adelaide Hospital have already been in touch, as I understand it. I have been advised that they have been in touch with Kelly Vincent, looking for an opportunity to talk further to her about her experience. SA Health always seeks to do better for the people of South Australia.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Pangallo has a supplementary.

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