Butler criticises SA govt health package

A critical federal Labor MP Mark Butler has questions about health services under reforms by the South Australian government.

Surgical equipment at a hospital

Federal Labor has criticised key aspects of the South Australian government's major heath reforms. (AAP)

Federal Labor has criticised key aspects of the South Australian government's major health reforms.

MP and federal Labor president Mark Butler has written to SA Health Minister Jack Snelling, asking him not to remove services from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), in his Port Adelaide electorate, before the new Royal Adelaide Hospital is open.

Under SA's transforming health package, the Queen Elizabeth will lose some acute services such as cardiology.

Mr Butler also said moving rehabilitation services from a facility at Hampstead to the Queen Elizabeth could come at the expense of others, such as geriatrics and palliative care.

He said clinicians at Hampstead and the QEH believed the model and budget proposed by the government were unacceptable.

The SA opposition said Mr Snelling was "dangerously isolated" in his transforming health policy.

"With even his federal colleagues publicly voicing their deep-seated concerns about his radical plan," health spokesman Stephen Wade said.

Premier Jay Weatherill said he would have preferred Mr Butler not to have gone public with his concerns but he was entitled to his views.

"I'm sure we'll be able to persuade him ultimately that this is in the interests of his electors," he told reporters on Monday.


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Source: AAP



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