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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2022-02-08 Daily Xml
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Elective Surgery

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO (15:39): Can the Minister for Health and Wellbeing please update the council on the resumption of elective surgery?

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:39): I am very pleased to do so, Mr President—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. S.G. WADE: —very pleased to do so. I'm delighted to inform the house that, since the government needed to temporarily suspend elective surgery on 4 January—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Sorry—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order! I cannot hear the minister. Order, please! I want to know about elective surgery. Minister, please, elective surgery—let's do this.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Apparently the opposition only cares about the Premier's press conferences. I stand here to say I care about elective surgery for ordinary South Australians, so let me tell you about what a priority it was for this government to return to elective surgery.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order! I want to hear the answer. Please, minister.

The Hon. I.K. Hunter: Have you got the right one this time, Stephen?

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Hunter! Minister, please.

The Hon. I.K. Hunter interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Hunter!

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Considering that they have already wasted two minutes of my response time, I hope that you won't be timing the bits when they are drowning me out.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. S.G. WADE: On 4 January 2022, in the context of an Omicron wave in South Australia, the South Australian government took the very wise step of suspending elective surgery—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order, the Hon. Mr Wortley!

The Hon. S.G. WADE: —and then in the impending days, while other states and territories were experiencing a similar Omicron wave, progressively more and more states introduced elective surgery bans. I'm very proud to tell this house that it was only 25 days after that suspension that the Marshall Liberal government—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Sorry, Mr President—

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. S.G. WADE: —I'm concerned you can't hear me, sir.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I'm struggling. I'm doing my best. Please, minister.

The Hon. R.P. Wortley interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Wortley!

The Hon. R.P. Wortley: He is slapping his own back.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Wortley, I will slap your back.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: So 25 days later, paediatric—

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: You would like that.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: —elective surgery was restored and on 7 February, just yesterday, we started resuming elective surgery for adults. That was 25 days, only 25 days before we resumed elective surgery. That's what pricked my ears when today I heard on the grapevine that the Western Australian government has decided to suspend elective surgery. They have decided that they are going to suspend elective surgery at the end of February because they want to restrict the elective surgeries in a bid to ease pressure on the hospital system.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: This is Western Australia. They are saying they are not going to take any bookings—there will be no new bookings taken for non-elective elective surgery in categories 2 and 3 after 28 February, and they are predicting that their suspension will be for between six and eight weeks. I would just point out, members, that this government started introducing surgery in 25 days.

The same article also pricked my ears, I must admit, when Dr Duncan-Smith, the Australian Medical Association, Western Australian President, Mark Duncan-Smith, urged the state government to follow South Australia's lead on introducing low-level restrictions to reduce peak case numbers. They are not arduous restrictions, it's not a lockdown, but what it has done is reduce the actual peak case numbers in South Australia from 30,000 to 40,000 new cases a day down to a peak of only 6,000 cases a day, he said. South Australia has provided Western Australia with a blueprint of how to go through COVID and Omicron without bursting our medical system.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I will take a supplementary, but I am going to get to the Hon. Ms Franks for her question.

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