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Speaker 1: As we know in our hospital system at the moment,

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Speaker 1: elective surgery has been canceled and that is leading to

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Speaker 1: an absolute blowout of cases at the moment where there

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Speaker 1: are twenty one odd thousand people listed as ready for

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Speaker 1: elective surgery, four thousand are over due. We'll talk about

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Speaker 1: that with the minister, the Health Minister, Chris Pickton, who

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Speaker 1: is on the line. Minister, good morning, thanks for your time.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Matthew.

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Speaker 1: Well, we'll get to that. I want to talk about

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Speaker 1: the good news first, because there is some good news.

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Speaker 1: You're announcing more beds. Is this part of the budget

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Speaker 1: part of a budget announcement new money for more beds.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, look exactly right. So this is going to be

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Speaker 2: a key part of the budget tomorrow is our health investing.

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Speaker 2: And we've continued to put more money into opening more

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Speaker 2: hospital beds because that's what's critically needed to build additional capacity.

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Speaker 2: We've hired more doctors and nurses, We've put in place

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Speaker 2: extra ambos. But the thing that is still coming is

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Speaker 2: opening hundreds of extra hospital beds, and across the course

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Speaker 2: of this year and next year, we've got equivalent of

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Speaker 2: another QEH coming into the system of extra beds, and

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Speaker 2: in this budget we're going even further and we will

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Speaker 2: be opening over the course of the next year and

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Speaker 2: a bit a extra fifty six beds fast tracked at

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Speaker 2: the quh and ly McEwen on top of all of

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Speaker 2: those other hundreds of beds that are coming across the system,

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Speaker 2: which means that we will be over the course of

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Speaker 2: two years an additional three hundred and thirty beds coming

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Speaker 2: into the system, which is absolutely what's needed to make

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Speaker 2: sure that we can unblock the emergency department, unblock the

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Speaker 2: ramp and the waiting room, and get patients flying through

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Speaker 2: the system when we're seeing such incredible demand.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so these will start coming on virtually almost immediately,

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Speaker 1: I suppose said, if you're talking about over the next

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Speaker 1: two years, we should see them well by the end

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Speaker 1: of this year, the first one of them.

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Speaker 2: So these exactly, so through the course of this year

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Speaker 2: we will see one hundred and fifty beds come into

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Speaker 2: the system, and then next year these additional fifty six

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Speaker 2: will add to one hundred and thirty that we already

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Speaker 2: had planned and works underway on to enable over the

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Speaker 2: course of those two years, three hundred and thirty coming

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Speaker 2: into the system, and the reason why we've been able

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Speaker 2: to fast track these ones is that we've identified spaces

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Speaker 2: in both the Qurh and the Limaquan Hospital that are

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Speaker 2: not used for beds at the moment that we believe

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Speaker 2: we can upgrade and renovate for fast track beds, and

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Speaker 2: the same way that we've just done for twenty additional

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Speaker 2: beds inside Flinder's Medical Center that will be led by

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Speaker 2: our coordinator General of Health Infrastructure, Dave forced her to

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Speaker 2: make sure that this is a fast tracked project as

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Speaker 2: much as possible because we really desperately need these additional

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Speaker 2: beds in the system. And I know we've talked before

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Speaker 2: previously about successive governments Labor and Liberal have had a

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Speaker 2: view that we probably need less beds in the system,

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Speaker 2: although all of those chickens have probably come home to

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Speaker 2: roost now and we clearly need more beds and we're

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Speaker 2: trying to do that as fast as we possibly can.

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Speaker 1: Have you given any thought once we get on top

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Speaker 1: and hopefully we will be on top of all the

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Speaker 1: ramping and everything else, as indeed your side of politics

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Speaker 1: promised at the last election, and all we've seen is

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Speaker 1: ramping blowout. If we get on top of that, at

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Speaker 1: some stage, have you given any thought to maybe clearing

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Speaker 1: out a water floor, a couple of floors full of

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Speaker 1: single beds, single rooms in the RAH and putting some

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Speaker 1: wards back in to create capacity moving forward.

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Speaker 2: Look, I think that there is a clear need at

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Speaker 2: some stage in the future to expand the roll the

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Speaker 2: late hospital as well, and that's one of the reasons

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Speaker 2: we made the difficult decision that we did about moving

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Speaker 2: the site of the new Women's and Kids Hospital. I mean, firstly,

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Speaker 2: event that we're able to build a bigger new women's

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Speaker 2: and Kids hospital, and we're really excited that works are

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Speaker 2: now underway there. But secondly, it means that we've kept

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Speaker 2: that expansion area for the roll that Lade Hospital as well,

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Speaker 2: and that expansion area is going to be critical in

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Speaker 2: decades to come as we face aging and growing population.

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Speaker 2: That it gives us the scope to expand the Adelaide

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Speaker 2: Hospital into the future. But we believe, you know, what's

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Speaker 2: a lot easier for us to be able to do

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Speaker 2: in the short term. He's going to be able to

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Speaker 2: expand some of our other hospitals across the system, and

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Speaker 2: basically every other major hospital in the city is going

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Speaker 2: through an expansion at the moment to create additional capacity

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Speaker 2: with the.

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Speaker 1: New beds that you've announced coming on, the new ones

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Speaker 1: just now and the ones that are due to come

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Speaker 1: on already three hundred and thirty as you say, over

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Speaker 1: the next couple of years. So will that see a

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Speaker 1: reduction in ramping hours? Does your modeling show that the

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Speaker 1: terrible statistics we have on ramping it's only just become

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Speaker 1: worse in the last couple of years than it ever

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Speaker 1: has been And over two years we've had more ramping

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Speaker 1: hours than over the previous four. Will that ease off?

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Speaker 1: Is that what the modeling shows?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Look, the key thing about ramping, unfortunately, is that

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Speaker 2: you can't just do one thing. You've got to do

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Speaker 2: one hundred things all together at the same time to

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Speaker 2: make a difference. And we're doing every one of those things.

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Speaker 2: But I think critically is having those beds because every

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Speaker 2: day and last week, where we saw really high pressure

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Speaker 2: on the healthcare system on a daily basis, were seeing

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Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty odd patients stuck in emergency departments

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Speaker 2: who had been seen by the ED staff but were

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Speaker 2: waiting for a ward bed, and that meant that those

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Speaker 2: ED beds weren't there for the next patients that need them,

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Speaker 2: and that blockage is what leads to ramping happening. And

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Speaker 2: so if we can free up the emergency department get

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Speaker 2: patients through those beds, then that's critical. There are other things,

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Speaker 2: of course, but are critical as well. And we have

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Speaker 2: a situation where we have about two hundred age care

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Speaker 2: ndis and other patients who need care outside of hospital

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Speaker 2: who were stuck in our beds. That deprives us of

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Speaker 2: two hundred beds for the next patients as well, and

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Speaker 2: so critically, working with the federal government, we're putting in

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Speaker 2: place extra staff to go and support those patients to

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Speaker 2: get into age care, make sure that they get support

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Speaker 2: in age care. Age care providers are more willing to

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Speaker 2: take them. That will be critical as well.

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Speaker 1: Parliament yesterday may not have supported the oppositions no confidence

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Speaker 1: motion against you. It failed fairly spectacularly. But if I

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Speaker 1: opened the lines to people right now as to whether

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Speaker 1: Chris Pickton should remain the Health Minister, I suspect you'd

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Speaker 1: be out of a job just based on ramping. Do

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Speaker 1: you feel any remorse in not being able to keep

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Speaker 1: that promise?

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Speaker 2: Look, mately, we are working on this as hard as

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Speaker 2: we possibly can, and we're trying to turn around what's

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Speaker 2: been a policy of a successive governments in terms of

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Speaker 2: trying to restrain capacity. We're now expanding capacity. We're putting

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Speaker 2: in place additional beds, we're putting in place additional doctors

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Speaker 2: and nurses to address this. Already, we've made a material

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Speaker 2: difference in terms of ambulance response times. Where it used

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Speaker 2: to be before the election, you had a one in

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Speaker 2: three charts of getting your ambulance come on time, and

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Speaker 2: two out of three times it was going to be

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Speaker 2: late for an urgent lights and siren's case. It's now

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Speaker 2: completely flipped two out of three times that's arriving on time.

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Speaker 2: That's because we've put the additional capacity in and we're

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Speaker 2: now doing the same thing in our hospitals. Of course,

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Speaker 2: it takes longer to build hospital beds, but I don't

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Speaker 2: think that there's any actual commentator, even the opposition, who've

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Speaker 2: got a critique of any of our policies or our

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Speaker 2: programs that we're doing. Of course, we want them to

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Speaker 2: be done as fast as we possibly can, and that's

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Speaker 2: critical to making sure that we can free up the

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Speaker 2: capacity and reduce ramping. But this is really important work

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Speaker 2: and I'm committed to continuing.

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Speaker 1: Elective surgery blowouts. Now, what do you say to people

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Speaker 1: who have been waiting and there's a blow quoted in

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Speaker 1: the paper today who came over from Port Lincoln has

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Speaker 1: had the surgery canceled as customer eight hundred bucks hotel,

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Speaker 1: taxi fares, airfares to come here. People like that affected

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Speaker 1: all over the state, whether they're locals or from regional

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Speaker 1: areas coming to Adelaide. Shouldn't the government be picking up

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Speaker 1: some of their tab.

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Speaker 2: Well, we have a Patient Assistant Transport scheme which does

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Speaker 2: help with a lot of the costs of people who

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Speaker 2: have to come to Adelaide for treatment. I understand the

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Speaker 2: person in the paper hadn't been overdue in terms of

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Speaker 2: their surgery, and we are expected that we'll be able

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Speaker 2: to see that patient and get that surgery done within

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Speaker 2: the appropriate time. But of course we apologize for anyone

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Speaker 2: who's been disrupted. We're keeping urgent elective surgeries going. We

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Speaker 2: of course of prioritizing making sure that emergency patients who

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Speaker 2: need their care can get it while we're facing a

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Speaker 2: real bed crunch at the moment where We've got really

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Speaker 2: significant numbers of people with COVID and flu in the

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Speaker 2: system at levels that we haven't seen really since twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty two, and it really highlights what we're talking about before,

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Speaker 2: why we need these fast track beds, why we need

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Speaker 2: this additional hospital capacity to make sure that we're not

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Speaker 2: in this situation. And the reason why this has been

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Speaker 2: done and the Code Yellow has been put in place

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Speaker 2: is to free up that bed capacity to make sure

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Speaker 2: that when patients have a life threatening emergency that the

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Speaker 2: system is going to be safe and we're reviewing it

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Speaker 2: on a daily basis and it's not going to be

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Speaker 2: in place one minute longer though neither.

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Speaker 1: But effectively, you're now creating ramping amongst elective surgery patients,

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Speaker 1: aren't you, because that Q is just getting bigger and

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Speaker 1: more people on hold.

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Speaker 2: But we need to provide elective surgery care. It's very

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Speaker 2: important for people to get that care. We are still

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Speaker 2: grappling with. There was one hundred days under the previous

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Speaker 2: government where elective surgery was completely shut down, and that

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Speaker 2: was before we had COVID in the system whatsoever. We're

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Speaker 2: now grappling with having very high numbers of COVID patients,

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Speaker 2: flue patients without those beds that are coming online shortly

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Speaker 2: to be able to cater for them, and that's critically

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Speaker 2: needed to make sure that we can care for the

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Speaker 2: emergency patients but also continue our elective surgery and address

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Speaker 2: those backlogs as well.

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Speaker 1: I understand Category three eye surgery cataract surgery, which was

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Speaker 1: one of the things canceled, has been reinstated in the

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Speaker 1: Metro area and at the RAH, but not in the regions.

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Speaker 1: None of the regions can go ahead with that. And

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Speaker 1: optomologists are telling me today they've had to cancel surgeries

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Speaker 1: for twenty odd people here and there for today, including today.

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Speaker 1: Why is that happening. Why is it allowed in the

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Speaker 1: city not the regions.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm happy to follow up with whoever you've spoken to, Matthew,

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Speaker 2: But we have a system in place where we've got

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Speaker 2: an Incident Commander who's Wayne Champion, who's reviewing requests from

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Speaker 2: hospitals across the state of where they can demonstrate that

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Speaker 2: surgery can continue without impacting upon emergency cases and better availability.

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Speaker 2: Then there's exemptions in place to allow that to happen,

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Speaker 2: and so there has been a number of those granted

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Speaker 2: where hospitals have been able to demonstrate that they can

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Speaker 2: have the big capacity open for emergency patients and also

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Speaker 2: continue with that non urgent collective surgery as well while

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Speaker 2: we're in this emergency management phase. So clearly, if there's

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Speaker 2: somebody who's can that, then we're happy to chase it

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Speaker 2: up with those particular adopts.

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Speaker 1: All right, Chris Pickton, appreciate your time this morning, Thank you,

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Speaker 1: thanks BATCHI Health Minister Chris Picton on our health system

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Speaker 1: at the moment, the surgery elective surgery tally at the

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Speaker 1: moment stands at twenty one odd thousand people twenty one

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Speaker 1: one seven two as yesterday, it's according to the TiSER

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Speaker 1: listed as ready four one hundred and thirty one now

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Speaker 1: overdue and that list is only growing day by day

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Speaker 1: as the space is found in our hospitals for people

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Speaker 1: needing a bed, which is equally as important, no doubt

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Speaker 1: about that. But it just goes to show the state

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Speaker 1: of health in South Australia at the moment as we

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Speaker 1: are being hit by a lot of colds, flues, covid

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Speaker 1: RSV that is taking its toll as well