SA’s hospitals to receive a $123m boost ready for learning to live with Covid

A further 73 beds in private hospitals will help with SA’s inevitable Covid surge when borders reopen – but when will they be ready?

Three private hospitals will provide an extra 73 beds to help SA cope with its inevitable Covid surge once borders reopen.

As the state government prepares to open borders before Christmas, allowing the Delta strain of Covid to enter the state, beds will be made available at Calvary North Adelaide and Central Districts Hospitals, Flinders Private Hospital and Parkwynd Hospital.

The beds are part of the $123 million capacity boost announced by the government earlier this week, and are in addition to the 93 beds announced at Modbury Hospital, Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre and the Repat Health Precinct on Thursday.

A further 107 beds were announced by SA Health earlier this week.

Premier Steven Marshall, right, and Health Minister Stephen Wade talk to Nurse Unit Manager Martyn Cox at Modbury Hospital. Picture: Brenton Edwards

Premier Steven Marshall said the state needed to be ready for the implications of living with Covid-19.

“We want to be ready for when we ease those border restrictions,” Mr Marshall said.

“We cannot become complacent.”

But the government came under criticism from the opposition when Health Minister Stephen Wade told parliament the beds would not be ready to receive patients by December.

Government figures have repeatedly said they hope to ease border restrictions in time for Christmas, likely leading to increased Covid cases.

“My advice is that the beds that were announced this morning will be opened progressively between now and January,” Mr Wade said in upper house question time.

Cases continued to soar interstate, with 2297 in Victoria on Thursday – a new Australian record. The shock new figures came as it was revealed Australia will assess Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for five to 12-year-old children on an “expedited basis”.

The breakdown includes 46 extra beds at Modbury, 38 at Hampstead and nine at the Repat.

Earlier in the week, Mr Wade announced an intake of 1200 nurses before the end of the year to cope with demand.

He said, given the expected surge in Covid cases, the uptake of nursing staff would help those working in the sector to manage demand.

“We appreciate this has been a busy time, this his has been a stressful time,” he said.

“So one of the key elements of which I think attracted the government to massively doubling the intake of nurses that this year, was to give some breathing space to our current staff.”

Mr Marshall said increasing nurse uptake and bed capacity is part of an effort become “Covid ready” and to have an “as normal Christmas as we possibly can”.

“We want to ease the borders by Christmas, we want to have as normal Christmas as we possibly can in South Australia,” he said.

There is likely to still be some testing requirements for those people that come across the border from New South Wales, from Victoria, from the ACT, but as we’ve shown, we’ve been able to reduce that testing requirement for places like Western Australia, Queensland, Northern Territory and Tasmania as that risk reduces.”

It comes as pop-up vaccination hubs are being set-up at more than 20 schools.

The Education Department will allow any student 12 and over with parental consent, and any aged 18 or older, to be jabbed in school hours at the SA Health-run clinics.