South Australian health officials quietly reintroduced a pause on some elective surgeries just one day before last Saturday's election, new Premier Peter Malinauskas has revealed.
The ban was introduced but not announced amid a rise in the state's COVID numbers, with Mr Malinauskas warning new government modelling showed cases were set to "escalate in a rather significant way".
He said the elective surgery ban impacted all non-urgent overnight elective surgery in public hospitals.
"Needless to say, I was rather disappointed and somewhat shocked to learn that an elective surgery ban has now been reinstated in some instances here in South Australia," he said.
SA Health chief executive Chris McGowan said no announcement was made because the government was in caretaker mode ahead of the election.
He claimed the cancellations only applied at one hospital.
"Whether or not I should make that decision a public decision, people will have opinions on that," he said.
Former Liberal government health minister Stephen Wade said he was not informed about the suspension of elective surgery last Friday.
"Short-term suspensions of elective surgery at times of peak demand have been commonplace under both Labor and Liberal governments for years," he said.
"Labor even did it to manage the shift to the new RAH [Royal Adelaide Hospital]. It is misleading for the new Premier to suggest otherwise."
A previous ban on elective surgeries, imposed to help the health system deal with increased numbers of coronavirus cases, had been repealed on February 28.
Late today, a spokesperson from SA Health said Local Health Networks were advised they could cancel elective surgery if required to help manage demand and create more bed capacity.
They said in the week leading up to the election on Saturday March 19, nine elective procedures were postponed across metropolitan hospitals.
"Hospitals also implemented other measures such as converting some overnight surgeries to day surgeries to help free up capacity," the spokesperson said.
"Since then, we've postponed an additional six elective surgeries across metropolitan hospitals."
Mr Malinauskas said the latest modelling showed South Australia's COVID cases could exceed January's COVID-19 peak next month, with as many as 8,000 new daily COVID-19 cases and 200 patients in hospital.
"This is modelling that I understand has been in possession of the government for some time.
"It's been updated last night and I want to make that publicly available to the people of South Australia today."
Four deaths, case numbers up on yesterday
Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier reported four people with COVID-19 had died in South Australia, with 3,686 new cases recorded.
They were a man in his 50s, a man in his 60s and a man and a woman in their 80s.
A total of 165 people with the disease are in hospital and 11 of them in intensive care — both up from yesterday.
Two people with COVID-19 are on ventilators.
Today's cases are about 500 up from Monday.
The Premier said he had directed SA Health to develop a plan for urgent additional hospital preparedness for the next rise in cases.
"So if you want to know why we've got different arrangements in South Australia for isolation requirements, that has been an informing consideration that in no doubt has helped inform the judgement of the state coordinator in making relative decisions," he said.
No changes yet to close contacts, masks
After yesterday querying the state's tough mask wearing and close contact rules in a meeting with Police Commissioner and state coordinator Grant Stevens, Ms Spurrier and SA Health chief executive Chris McGowan yesterday, the Premier today made no changes to either.
"My government does have an ambition to get closer to national consistency in that regard," he said.
Mr Malinauskas did reveal he would scrap the state's so-called COVID Ready Committee, which provides advice to the Police Commissioner, and replace it with a sub-committee of cabinet called the Emergency Management Council.
It will meet for the first time under the new Labor government on Friday, following the swearing-in of Chris Picton as health minister and the rest of the cabinet on Thursday.
Close contact isolation rules will be at the top of the agenda.
In South Australia, a person is a close contact if they have been with a positive COVID-19 case for 15 minutes without a mask, compared with four hours nationally.
If the positive person is within the same household and they cannot isolate, everyone else must isolate for 14 days, compared with seven days in other state.
Masks must still be worn in indoor public spaces.
Mr Malinauskas said the Crown Solicitor would be instructed to develop legislative options to manage COVID-19 beyond the current emergency declaration, which Malinauskas said would not be extended beyond June 30.
Today marks the second anniversary of the state of emergency connected to the coronavirus pandemic.
