This morning, Liberal Leader Steven Marshall unveiled a $6.5 million plan to upgrade Queen Elizabeth Hospital heart services.

He is promising to upgrade the western suburbs hospital’s catheterisation lab – which treats patients for heart attack – purchase a second echocardiography machine and maintain “15 to 20 beds” in the cardiac unit, which currently has about 13.

“This important investment is critical to delivering first class cardiac services for the people of western Adelaide,” said Marshall.

“Today’s announcement lays down a clear plan for the recovery of cardiac services at the QEH to ensure that the people of the west have good access to cardiac care.”

A Liberal Party spokesperson told InDaily the $6.5 million budget included $2.5 million for “capital” and $4 million for “recurrent” costs (the latter is made up of about $1 million each year to pay new staff at the cardiac unit).

The party is promising to “actively recruit staff to TQEH cardiac services, recognising that Transforming Health has led to a depletion of experienced staff” and work with the University of Adelaide to “coordinate heart health research within the Central Adelaide Local Health Network” – if it wins the March 2018 poll.

In June, the State Government backed away from unpopular plans to downgrade heart services at the western suburbs hospital – despite advice from within the SA Health bureaucracy that the move was a key element of the Transforming Health hospital reform program – and announced a $250 million plan for a new emergency department and surgery suite there.

Marshall today labelled that announcement a “media stunt” – although opposition health spokesperson Stephen Wade confirmed the Liberal Party was also committed to the $250 million upgrades – and argued his plan would secure the future of the QEH cardiac unit.

“We will take urgent action to make sure that the cardiac unit does not fall over,” he said.

“The people in the western suburbs have been let down by Labor for too long with hollow promises and scaling back of services on this site.

“People want services as close to where they live as possible and only a Liberal Party will make sure that happens.”

QEH director of cardiology John Horowitz told InDaily this morning that the Liberal Party policy “would be a very good thing” for the people of Adelaide’s west.

Horowitz was suspended this year over bullying allegations after voicing public opposition to the downgrading of his unit under the Government’s Transforming Health hospital consolidation reform program, but was returned to his post in June.

He said the cardiology unit needed several staff to be replaced and upgrades to equipment in order to serve patients effectively – and that a $6.5 million in the cardiac unit should be a “given” no-matter which side of politics wins Government in March.

“I don’t think the welfare of the people of the western suburbs should be a political football … it should be a given,” he said.

“It worries me enormously that the very idea of providing reasonable emergency services to the people of the western suburbs should be such a controversial (issue).

“This (the Liberal policy) could be a very good thing … for the people of the western suburbs.”

He said the unit had lost 40 per cent of its staff over the past two years, and that it needed about $2 million worth of investment in equipment and a budget to hire four technicians, two senior doctors and two junior doctors at the service.

Wade told InDaily the Liberal Party would not be “prescriptive” about the types of new staff it would employ at the cardiac unit.

“(It) may involve relocation of staff between sites. It may involve fresh recruitment,” he said.

He said his party would guarantee the cath lab would continue to operate 24/7, claiming that the Government had plans to reduce the service to weekday business hours.

But Health Minister Peter Malinauskas told InDaily: “The Opposition’s plan is utterly deficient and seeks to provide only part of what the State Government is delivering.”

“We have already committed to retaining cardiac services at the QEH, including the capacity to deliver 24/7 services through the cath lab.

“On top of that, we have committed to $250 million of new money to renew the QEH, including building a brand new ED, operating theatres and carpark.”

Last month, the Liberal Party committed to restore the high-dependency unit at Modbury Hospital, at a cost of $20 million over four years.

In July, Transforming Health clinical ambassador Dorothy Keefe was caught in a recording, leaked to the State Opposition, condemning the QEH decision as being against the unanimous advice of senior clinicians. SA Health CEO Vicki Kaminski labelled it a “political” decision.