Wide changes to South Australian health services will see inpatients at the Repatriation General Hospital in Adelaide redirected elsewhere.
People needing care will have to go to hospitals such as Flinders Medical Centre in the southern suburbs.
The SA Government said 55 new rehabilitation beds would be available there and in a new psychogeriatric ward, at a cost of more than $150 million.
SA Health Department said patients could also be redirected to Noarlunga Hospital, further south, as it became a statewide centre for day surgery.
Noarlunga’s walk-in emergency department would be closed and one established across the road at the site of the GP Plus clinic.
Health Minister Jack Snelling estimated 87 per cent of patients requiring emergency care at Noarlunga would be seen more quickly.
In the northern suburbs, repat patients could be sent to Modbury Hospital as it became a major rehabilitation and sub-acute centre with a focus on rehabilitation and geriatric care.
A health spokesman said the Repatriation Hospital at Daw Park, which currently had 240 beds, would still be used as services such as prosthetics stayed on site.
He said staff would be redeployed to other sites but did not rule rule out the chance of redundancies.
The spokesman did rule out the prospect of any job cuts from bringing forward a relocation of the Adelaide Women’s and Children’s Hospital to a site alongside the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.
That relocation originally was scheduled for 2023 but the Government said it was keen for an earlier move once the new Royal Adelaide opens next year.
The Government’s paper outlining its health changes will be open for public submissions until February 27.
SOME OF THE CHANGES PROPOSED IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA’S TRANSFORMING HEALTH PAPER
* The Royal Adelaide, Flinders and Lyell McEwin hospitals to become “super sites” for major emergencies with 24/7 senior medical staff;
* Queen Elizabeth and Modbury hospitals to be scaled down with life-threatening emergency patients to go directly to a super site;
* Noarlunga Hospital to become SA’s centre for single day elective surgery and an expert palliative care site;
* The Queen Elizabeth hospital to focus on multi-day elective surgery;
* A walk-in emergency clinic to be established at Noarlunga Hospital opposite the current hospital on the site of the GP Plus Super Clinic;
* Repatriation General Hospital and Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre to be closed, with their rehabilitation services to be integrated into other hospitals;
* A new Post-Traumatic Stress centre to be set up at an undecided location, replacing Ward 17 at the Repatriation General Hospital;
* more than 70 new paramedics, 12 new ambulances and two new ambulance stations to deal with the Emergency Departments’ changes; and
* a new dedicated centre of elective eye surgery at a reconfigured Modbury Hospital.