Three months after a safety inspection by the South Australian Salaried Medical Officers Association (SASMOA), critical understaffing issues remain unresolved at the Mount Gambier Hospital – putting patients and frontline health professionals at risk.

Despite concerns being raised by hospital staff and the union back in February, Labor has once again chosen not to prioritise regional health services, prompting SASMOA to consider escalating the matter to SafeWork SA and the Employment Tribunal.

SASMOA has continued to raise their concerns at the lack of action taken, given the continued understaffing in the Emergency Department at Mount Gambier Hospital.

Shadow Minister for Regional Health Services, Penny Pratt said it is extremely disappointing to see Labor brush aside serious workplace safety issues such as understaffing.

“The Government must come clean about what steps it has taken since February to address the staffing concerns and whether any further inspections have been carried out,” Ms Pratt said.

“It’s disgraceful that after three months, no concrete action has been taken to fix staffing shortfalls at the Mount Gambier Hospital. Understaffing not only puts our hardworking frontline health professionals under pressure, it also puts patient safety at risk.

“Labor promised to fix the health system. They said they’d listen to the frontline, yet here we are, three months on and nothing has changed.”

Shadow Minister for Government Accountability, Ben Hood called on the Government to reveal if Health Minister, Chris Picton, has personally intervened to avoid yet another employment tribunal case against his department.

“We’ve already seen this Government dragged before the SA Employment Tribunal for wage theft in the MFS – now our public health professionals are preparing to do the same,” Mr Hood said.

“We are talking about people’s safety, both the staff trying to keep up, and the patients waiting for care.

“How many warnings does this Government need before it takes responsibility for the crisis in our hospitals?”

“South Australians deserve better than this pattern of denial, delay, and dysfunction.”

Media Contact: Gretel Mead 0449 500 844