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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2022-02-10 Daily Xml
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COVID-19 Response

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (14:41): How is blaming the former Labor government helping the patient who is dying now?

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Bourke, please repeat your supplementary question.

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: No, I haven't forgotten it. I said: how is blaming the former government and pointing the finger at us, after you being in government for four years, helping a patient who is dying now?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:41): I have no doubt that the recently concluded fee-for-service agreement with country doctors will encourage more and more country doctors to engage with country hospitals. The engagement of locums, I understand—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. S.G. WADE: —started significantly about 10 years ago. That was under the former Labor government. It's a problem that was exacerbated during the COVID period because a significant number of locums were coming across the borders to provide medical services and also there was an increase in the cost, the amount of money that was being charged by locums. I think the increase in this period was about 20 per cent, so that was a significant increase to the cost of the locums.

As the honourable member quite rightly highlights in her quote in relation to the GP, it's incredibly frustrating for fee-for-service local GPs, so I am very pleased that it was this government that delivered a significant generational change in the rural GP fee-for-service agreement.

I would just remind the Labor Party, which seem only when it is convenient to represent the worker, that my understanding is when the last rural GP fee-for-service agreement was being negotiated the former Labor government decided that they weren't going to stay engaged with the representatives of the GPs and went straight to the GPs with what their representatives saw was inadequate. This government stayed at the table—about 18 months I think it took to get the right agreement—and I believe it's a generational change in rural health, which will have long-term benefits for country South Australians.

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