New facility opens in Adelaide to divert patients from busy hospitals

A new facility designed to divert patients from busy hospitals is opening in Adelaide this morning. Sophie Holder reports.

Transcript

00:00This new hospital avoidance hub will be opening here in the western suburbs of Adelaide.

00:06It's aim will be to keep people who don't need to be in the emergency department out

00:10of it.

00:11That's especially important here in South Australia, like many places across the country

00:14where we're still grappling with issues like ramping.

00:17And patients can be referred here for urgent but not life-threatening medical issues.

00:22It's modelled on other similar services that are available here in South Australia.

00:26There's also a new ambulance station opening in Woodville that will be helping to train

00:29up interns to be deployed into the force later this year.

00:33But this does all come at a time when South Australia is still facing a lot of pressure

00:37on its health system.

00:38June did see a slight improvement in the ambulance response rates as compared to May.

00:43The state government says that just over 62 per cent of Priority 2 cases were reached

00:47on time, which is two percentage points higher than the month before.

00:51SA Health's target though for that is 90 per cent.

00:55Meanwhile, just over 71 per cent of Priority 1 cases were reached on time, down from 72

01:00per cent.

01:01The June response times show that ambulances spent 3,798 hours on the ramp, which is down

01:07from a record high May of 4,773 hours.

01:11Now the state's Ambulance Service's Chief Executive Rob Elliott says that he's hopeful

01:15that this centre behind me will help with those ramping issues by helping to keep people

01:19that don't need to be in emergency departments out of them.

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