Premier Steven Marshall unveils $500m in health spending

Four major hospitals will be upgraded if the Liberals are re-elected – part of a $500m spending barrage to check Labor’s key election promises.

Four major metropolitan hospitals – the Repat, Lyell McEwin, Noarlunga and Modbury – would be expanded at a cost of $123m if the Liberal government is returned next month.

The pledge is part of a $500m health spending barrage flagged by Premier Steven Marshall, countering a major Opposition focus on boosting the sector, in what has been hailed a key election battleground.

Unveiling the policy at the Repat on Thursday, Mr Marshall said new capital works funding would deliver “high-priority projects”, including extra beds, expanded emergency departments and more mental health support.

The operational health budget would be boosted by $450m, he said, which would help tackle the continuing Omicron wave.

“(We’re) making sure that we can keep those elevated number of beds in place so that we can get people back to having their elective surgery, back to having their children at school and our state safe and our economy strong,” he said.

But he acknowledged some of that $450m commitment had been included in December’s mid-year budget review.

The $500m figure takes into account the remaining portion, combined with the $123m capital works spend and funding for a mental health plan that will be announced with the federal government later in the campaign.

Mr Marshall confirmed the funding was new and had not previously been announced, after Health Minister Stephen Wade earlier told ABC Radio he was unsure of that aspect.

“That’s a question for the Treasurer,” he said.

The health spending avalanche is a bid to defuse Labor’s central campaign issue and deflect criticism of the $662m Riverbank Arena, which Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas has vowed to scuttle in favour of health spending.

Premier Steven Marshall and Health Minister Stephen Wade at Modbury Hospital. Picture: Brenton Edwards

The Liberals argue that, since being elected in 2018, they have recruited more than 400 doctors and more than 1000 nurses while spending a record $7.85bn on health in 2021-22.

However, when asked about hospital ramping, Mr Marshall admitted the government had not resolved the issue.

“We did have a (ramping) peak in October, we’ve had a reduction in ramping most weeks since that time, but there's still a long way to go,” he said.

Opposition treasury spokesman Stephen Mullighan lashed the government’s plan as “utterly humiliating”.

“Far from being a $500m health boost, this is less than a quarter of that amount, with the vast bulk of the rest for Covid measures which have been previously announced,” he said.

“His health policy evaporated in a matter of hours.”

Launching Labor’s state election campaign on Sunday, Mr Malinauskas pledged to open 98 mental health beds in a new $182m promise he touted as the most significant investment of its kind in more than a decade.

Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas outside the Royal Adelaide Hospital Picture: Morgan Sette

Labor has promised to establish 300 extra public hospital beds across SA, aimed at slashing the crippling pressure on emergency departments and reducing ambulance ramping.

Mr Malinauskas did not reveal which hospitals would receive more than 200 extra non-mental health beds as part of Labor’s plan, promising to reveal those details “in the coming days and weeks”.

He on Tuesday vowed to recruit 300 nurses in the first term of a Labor government to boost public hospital patient care, which followed a promise to spend $62m to recruit 100 doctors over the next four years.

Then, on Wednesday, Labor pledged $92m in upgrades to Modbury Hospital, which serves two crucial northeastern Adelaide marginal seats, including a $28m cancer centre.