An understaffed and under-resourced health sector has taken centre stage at the weekend’s South Australian elections, with the incumbent Liberal Government facing a landslide defeat.
Prior to Saturday’s vote, media pundits described health as a “key issue”, with ambulance ramping and hospital understaffing being at the forefront of the opposition’s campaign.
The Liberal government had been hampered by scandal after scandal relating to its handling of the state’s health system, with instances of staffing and bed shortages referred to throughout the election campaign.
The new Premier of South Australia, Labor’s Peter Malinauskas, indicated that health issues were “omnipresent” during the election campaign”.
In his acceptance speech, Malinauskas highlighted his government’s commitment to health reform.
“Let them say that we had a generational investment in health and mental health,” he noted.
In one of his first acts after winning government, Malinauskas visited an Adelaide hospital to thank healthcare workers and to reaffirm his commitment to delivering for them, indicating that his government “will be working very hard to action and implement our health policies”.
I’m here with our doctors, nurses, ambos, cleaners, healthcare workers and staff in the hospital because I want to thank them for everything they do.
Words matter – but my Government will be working very hard to action and implement our health policies. pic.twitter.com/0pVUc8z9Bh
— Peter Malinauskas (@PMalinauskasMP) March 21, 2022
Prior to Saturday’s poll, Malinauskas pledged to implement nurse-to-patient ratios in the state, as well as committing over a billion dollars to fix their state’s ailing health system.