A new Acute Assessment Centre will open and additional Discharge Beds are now online at the Royal Adelaide Hospital as part of further urgent measures to address the pressure of winter flu, COVID and normal winter demand affecting our health system.

The measures are part of a comprehensive Winter Demand Strategy, released today, to protect South Australians, our hospitals and health care workers.

The Strategy includes 80 extra beds on top of 180 more beds that have already been opened in the past few weeks, as well as boosted virtual care and community care to avoid having to go to hospital, and free flu vaccination funded by the State Government in addition to expanded COVID vaccine campaigns.

To support families during the winter months, the Women’s and Children’s Hospital is now expanding its COVIDKIDS program, which offers virtual care services, to cover all respiratory illnesses so parents can get the help they need for their children 24/7 without needing to go to the Emergency Department.

The Winter Demand Strategy will take urgent action needed to strengthen the hospital system which was left under-resourced by the former Liberal Government. The Strategy is part of the Government’s long-term investments in rolling out 554 more beds across the health network.

The former Government failed to provide enough staff and beds and allowed ambulance ramping to escalate by a record 485% over its term, gridlocking hospitals and leaving patients in ambulances outside EDs for hours.

It comes as new SA Ambulance Service data released monthly by the State Government shows that ramping for May 2022 was 3412 hours. This shows that the Liberals’ significant under-investment in the health system over the past four years is now seriously impacting health services as COVID, flu cases and winter ills rise.

New data also released shows that Ambulance response times were the worst response times on record, with 61% of Category 1 ambulance callouts seen on time, and 55% of Category 2 callouts seen on time during 2021/22.

The State Government through the Budget will invest an additional $2.4 billion in rebuilding the health system and helping to fix the ramping crisis with 554 more beds, 350 extra ambos, 101 extra doctors and 300 extra nurses to create more capacity and better treatment for South Australians.

Another measure is reversing $400 million of the Marshall Liberal Government’s health cuts. This means an additional $400 million for the health sector that would have otherwise been cut to meet the former government’s savings targets.

The 2022 Winter Demand Strategy includes:

• 80 more hospital beds being opened to create capacity for flu patients. That’s in addition to the 180 beds already opened by the Malinauskas Government to create capacity for COVID patients.
• Providing extra services at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, including an Acute Assessment Centre so patients that need to be admitted can bypass the ED, and adding an extra 8 beds in the discharge lounge to accommodate patients waiting on discharge and improve flow through the hospital.
• Expanding the virtual services offered by WCH. The COVIDKIDS service at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital is being expanded to provide treatment and assessment for all children with respiratory infections and has become the 24/7 Virtual Kids at Home service.
• Free flu vaccinations for all South Australians until 30 June 2022.
• Working with private hospital and day surgeries to enable people to get their elective surgery and providing day surgery in public hospitals where appropriate.
• Providing care in the community that will avert the need for people to go to hospital through GPs and other primary care networks.
  The immediate response is in stark contrast to the former Liberal Government which only released one winter demand management plan, in June 2018.

Meanwhile an independent expert review of the care of a woman at Lyell McEwin Hospital’s Emergency Department on Sunday 8 May 2022 is today being publicly released.

The review was undertaken by Professor Chris Baggoley AO, former Australian Chief Medical Officer and now a member of World Health Organisation Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee on the World Health Emergency Program.

Professor Baggoley found the woman’s experience was the result of an oversight by the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network (NALHN), and that Executive of NALHN had recognised this oversight and taken steps to ensure it would not happen again.

Quotes

Attributable to Chris Picton

There’s no doubt the previous Government had failed to properly resource the health system. We inherited a hospital system under enormous strain with flu cases now only adding to increasing demand.

This is the first winter since the pandemic hit that our health system will be required to manage both COVID-19 and the flu, as well as normal winter demand, and we know this will be a challenge.

This is the state’s first Winter Demand Strategy in four years and does everything we can with the situation we have inherited to generate more capacity.

We will open 80 new hospital beds across the system to create extra capacity for flu patients. That’s on top of the 180 beds we have already opened in recent weeks.

At the RAH we are opening an Acute Assessment Centre which will enable some patients to be immediately admitted straight from the ED, or from a GP referral. This will get faster care and treatment for people and improve flow in the hospital.

The COVIDKIDS service offered through WCH has been expanded to provide virtual care for kids with respiratory illnesses as well as COVID. This will provide important peace of mind for many families.

The ramping and ambulance delays patients are experiencing is completely unacceptable and that’s why we are investing $2.4 billion to open more than 550 beds to help fix the ramping crisis.

And we continue to call on South Australians to do their bit and get fully vaccinated for both COVID and the flu, both free and widely available.