Disability, aged care focus of SA campaign

Disability services and aged care were the focus during election campaigning in South Australia

SA Premier Jay Weatherill.

Jay Weatherill is offering more traineeships in South Australia's disability sector if re-elected. (AAP)

Disability services and aged care were in the spotlight as the South Australian government returned to the campaign trail following the release of a report into Adelaide's scandal-plagued Oakden nursing home.

Education Minister Susan Close joined Premier Jay Weatherill on Friday to announce a re-elected Labor government would fund 1000 school-based traineeships in the disability sector.

The program would help fill the 6000 jobs expected to be created by the NDIS in South Australia, and would include payments to service providers of up to $5000 per student to allow them to offer work placements and mentoring support.

It would cost the government $6 million, with a further $1 million invested over four years to train and upskill Auslan users and interpreters.

The announcement comes halfway through the campaign, and two days after the release of the corruption commissioner Bruce Lander's report into failures at Oakden.

Mr Lander declared the affair a "shameful chapter in the state's history" and described the facility as a "disgrace".

He made a finding of maladministration against five people who either worked at Oakden or were health department officials.

Responding to concerns that aged care staff may not be adequately checked and monitored, Premier Jay Weatherill said the new program will involve a screening process.

"The training process will all be about making sure that they have the right attitudes - of course there'll be a screening element in that," he said.

"We need to make sure that we bring on young people with the values and the aptitudes to work in the disability services sector."

As the fallout from the report entered its third day, Opposition Leader Steven Marshall pledged to convert part of the recently closed Repatriation General Hospital into a facility for elderly mental health patients.

Mr Marshall said there is a critical bed storage for mental health patients in South Australia, and promised $14 million to convert Ward 18 into an area for some of the state's most vulnerable people.

"All together we want to have 35 older persons living with mental health and in particular dementia conditions on this site," Mr Marshall told reporters.

The facility would be one of three under a Liberal government to care for South Australians with severe mental health conditions.

Nick Xenophon said the plan to convert the Repatriation General Hospital was an opportunity to maximise its use, whether for mental health or aged care purposes.


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Source: AAP


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