“We’re not through it yet and can’t get complacent, but South Australians can feel a sense of pride that we’ve got through a pandemic that has cost 5.6 million lives around the world.”
Marshall said that SA’s death toll from the pandemic now stood at 120.
The toll before borders opened was four.
At Modbury Hospital where he unveiled a 26-bed short-stay unit as part of a $98 million upgrade, Marshall flagged that an announcement on resuming elective surgery could be made “later today”.
It comes as a Productivity Commission review revealed 63 per cent of critical patients attending SA emergency departments in 2020-21 were seenxjmtzyw within clinically acceptable timeframes — below the national average of 71 per cent last financial year.
Ambulance response times across SA increased by 10 minutes to an average of 32.8 minutes.
Health Minister Stephen Wade attributed ambulance ramping to staff furloughed due to the pandemic and said that “infection control measures in hospitals” meant that even when SA was COVID-free the pandemic had impacted on ambulance ramping.
Marshall blamed the ramping issue on the previous Labor government.
“The mess that Labor left the health system in needs time to unwind, it needs time to improve,” Marshall said.
He countered Labor’s line of attack that his government would spend money on stadiums instead of healthcare, arguing that his $662m Riverbank Arena election pledge will only cost $30m in the next four years.
