SA Election 2018: Labor promises $15m for preventive measures for deadly diseases
PREVENTIVE measures for heart attacks, strokes and epilepsy would be boosted by a $15 million Labor election pledge to tackle chronic disease.
SA 2018
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PREVENTIVE measures for heart attacks, strokes and epilepsy would be boosted by a $15 million Labor election pledge to tackle chronic disease.
The package would also target obesity, diabetes and asthma in children.
It comes after Labor yesterday pledged $30 million to create a health hub next to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, if re-elected on March 17.
It would house a new Adelaide Eye Hospital — promised three years ago — a walk-in clinic for patients with chronic diseases, such as lung conditions, and a nurse-led clinic to treat minor injuries.
Health Minister Peter Malinauskas said $1.35 million of the $15 million preventive health package would enable the Heart Foundation to start an 18-month trial offering free screening checks via a mobile Heart Bus.
The service would benefit South Australians like great-grandmother Judith Gentile, 76, who has needed nine stents to unblock her arteries.
“Prior to my angina, I never went to the doctor as I wasn’t sick, so I never had my heart checked,” she said.
“The Heart Foundation bus could have prevented my heart disease and could save many lives.”
The package would also include:
$7.2 million for a childhood obesity and lifestyle program.
$4.5 million for a four-year trial to better manage asthma.
$1 million awareness campaign to reduce sugar consumption by children.
$400,000 to fund community outreach nurses at the Epilepsy Centre for four years.
$240,000 for the Stroke Foundation to run a community education campaign.
The Adelaide Eye Hospital was first promised in early 2015 as part of the Transforming Health reforms and was to be hosted at Modbury Hospital.
That plan was dropped in October, 2015, after opposition from eye health groups concerned that people with low vision faced public transport difficulties getting to Modbury.
Premier Jay Weatherill said the $30 million hub in the city’s biomedical precinct should also make room to move Chest Clinic outpatient services into the RAH.
Liberal health spokesman Stephen Wade said voters should treat the health hub announcement with “an enormous dose of sceptism”.
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