Nurses criticise SA-Best on policy details

South Australia's branch of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation has criticised SA-Best over what it says is a lack of health policy detail.

Nurses have criticised Nick Xenophon's SA-Best party over a lack of health policy detail.

Releasing its scorecard in the lead-up to the March election, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation said on Wednesday Mr Xenophon's party had repeatedly snubbed requests for details on its health plan.

"How can you possibly consider yourself a serious contender as premier if you can't release details on how you plan to allocate resources that represent 30 per cent of the entire state budget," SA branch secretary Elizabeth Dabars said.

But Mr Xenophon fired back, saying the union had "jumped the gun" with its complaints.

"SA-Best will be releasing its health policy soon and in the context of the election campaign," he said.

"But as is the case with all our policies, we will do so according to our own schedule and not in response to a questionnaire and deadline from another organisation."

Scoring all the major parties on their health policy statements, the federation gave the biggest tick to The Greens, ranking the party's stand on major health issues such as public hospital infrastructure, emergency care and support for health workers as excellent.

Labor generally ranked fair or good in most areas with the Liberals given a similar report card.

SA-Best were ranked poor because of their lack of response to the federation's questions.


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Source: AAP



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