The Government today announced the beds would open by the end of the year under a scheme being negotiated with an NGO. The price tag remains under wraps but is expected to exceed $3 million.

An additional 20 beds that were slated to close by December will also remain open within the on-site ViTA facility – a “progressive partnership” between the not-for-profit Aged Care and Housing Group Group, SA Health and Flinders University – with funding to come from the existing Southern Adelaide Local Health Network budget.

Acting SALHN chief operating officer David Morris said the beds would serve long-stay non-acute patients with complex needs, such as NDIS patients, but would have a “tenfold multiplier effect” on freeing up beds for patients with acute needs elsewhere in the system.

“There’s lots of work to do, but we think within those 20 beds we could put through about 2000 acute patients, whereas normally we could only accommodate about 200 of the NDIS type group, so it’s a got a big multiplier effect,” he said.

He said the move was “the exact right thing to do at the time”, having now ascertained the impact of the NDIS rollout on the SALHN.

“We now have a number of patients stuck, or stranded, or awaiting a transition of care in the hospital – it’s not good for them, and it’s not good for other acute patients trying to get in,” he said.

“What we’re trying to do is free up that capacity in acute hospitals so more patients can go through.”

It comes as the Marshall Government today released a community and clinical consultation conducted by DemocracyCo, the same organisation that helped run Labor’s nuclear waste dump citizens’ jury [scroll down for full report].

The review concluded there was “a strong view that the Repat site needed to be reactivated as a health precinct to take pressure off the health system”, with “the strongest theme… the importance of focusing services at the site on supporting the aged and to a slightly lesser degree veterans”.

“The provision of mental health facilities on the reactivated Repat site was most strongly supported by those who responded across the different feed-in mechanisms… followed by a strong focus on the provision of simple surgical procedures (predominantly day surgery procedures),” it found.

Wade said he would use the consultation as he “brings together” a masterplan for the site “in the coming weeks”.

“I was hoping it could be released before the end of this year, but let’s be clear: the most important thing is to get it right, not get it early,” he said.

But, despite his government campaigning on a pledge to “Re-open the Repat”, Wade warned against expecting the hospital to be re-commissioned in its previous form.

“We’re continuing to work through the myriad of opportunities on this site,” he said.

“It’s never going to be possible to restore the Repatriation General Hospital that the Labor Government closed… it won’t be the Repatriation General Hospital, but it will be a genuine health precinct which will honour both the spirit and the veterans of the Repat site.

“What we believe is possible and we believe is on the verge of being delivered is a genuine health precinct.”

He said South Australians would be “excited” when the masterplan is released, “because this is an opportunity to turn what was once a hospital in a parkland into an exciting health precinct which will continue to benefit the people of SA for decades to come”.

The hospital was controversially closed under Labor’s Transforming Health plan, with a contract to sell to ACH Group for a mixed-use facility that could include residential developments, shops and a hotel.

Wade said today Transforming Health placed “a great burden of destruction on the health system” and “the reactivation of the Repat site is at least some attempt by the Marshall Liberal Government to try to salvage what we can”.

“The good news is it hasn’t been sold and we are going to be re-activating this site as a genuine health precinct,” he said.

Asked whether he believed voters felt they had elected a Liberal Government that had pledged to re-open the Repat hospital, Wade said: “I’ve been delighted with the response to the community consultation… people are delighted they have a government that’s willing to engage with them and willing to listen to them.”

“I believe we’ll continue to have community support,” he said.

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