Health Minister Jack Snelling jetting off to Edinburgh Fringe comedy festival amid health system crises
HEALTH Minister Jack Snelling is refusing to cancel his 12-day trip to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from next week, despite ongoing crises in the health system.
- UNION: Modbury Hospital ED surgery debacle not its first
- DEBACLE: Man loses testicle after health reforms delayed surgery
- REFORMS: ‘Patient permanently disabled after being denied surgery’
- SCANDAL: Coroner told chemo bungle victims advised they were underdosed before their deaths
HEALTH Minister Jack Snelling is refusing to cancel his 12-day trip to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from next week, despite ongoing crises in the health system.
The Opposition described the decision as a sick joke and called on the minister to abandon the trip and instead deal with his troubled health portfolio.
Mr Snelling will be away from Tuesday to August 21.
The Liberals say he needs to sort out:
CHEMOTHERAPY dosing bungles;
IMPACTS of the downgraded Modbury Hospital on the Lyell McEwin Hospital;
DELAYS and cost blowouts at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital;
RAMPING at emergency departments;
COST blowouts with the Enterprise Patient Administration System;
FINALISING enterprise bargaining negotiations with nurses.
“At a time (when) we have multiple crises across our health department, we’ve got a minister who is taking another 12 days of gazetted leave,” Opposition spokesman Stephan Knoll said.
“This brings the total to over three months since announcing Transforming Health. There is a full-time health crisis in South Australia; we need more than a part-time Health Minister.
“This trip is a joke but it is a sick joke that is playing South Australians for fools.”
Mr Snelling said he would attend the festival to support South Australian artists.
“As Arts Minister it’s now very clear that Steven Marshall and the Liberal Party have abandoned their previous bipartisan support of our very talented and highly lucrative arts community, which continues to create hundreds of jobs in SA and inject tens of millions of dollars into the SA economy,” he said.
The Opposition’s call comes as the besieged minister on Thursday refused to reveal whether investigators looking into a case where a young man lost a testicle sought the opinion of the surgeons who treated him.
He also said he would not reinstate emergency surgery at Modbury Hospital under any circumstances.
The Opposition is demanding an independent inquiry.
Mr Snelling fronted media on Thursday to discuss a case, revealed in The Advertiser, in which a man was taken by ambulance to Modbury Hospital with a twisted testicle six weeks ago.
It was claimed a surgeon was ready to operate but protocols under the Transforming Health reforms meant the patient had to be transferred to the Lyell McEwin Hospital, resulting in a two-hour delay.
Mr Snelling said the matter had been investigated and found the patient’s outcome was not compromised by the delay. However he would not confirm whether input from surgeons involved in the case was sought by investigators.