Gawler and the Northern Suburbs of Adelaide are set to get a major injection in health infrastructure and resources designed to tackle the current health crisis in the region, if Labor is elected to Government this month.

Gawler will benefit from an additional vehicle and 24/7 ambulance crew, an upgraded ambulance station, and an additional 16 beds at the Gawler Health Service as part of Labor’s commitment to tackle the health crisis facing the local community.

The Gawler Ambulance Station will be upgraded as part of an $18.4 million investment to rebuild and expand stations at Victor Harbor, Campbelltown, Mt Barker and Gawler.

All four stations will also each gain an additional 24/7 crew as part of Labor’s commitment to invest in 350 new paramedics and ambulance officers.

The Lyell McEwin Hospital will increase its bed numbers by 24 and the Elizabeth Ambulance Station will be upgraded and expanded to accommodate an additional crew.

The increase in bed capacity was announced on Friday as part of Labor’s commitment to significantly boost resources to the health sector to tackle the ramping and health crisis the state is currently facing, while the additional investment in the ambulance service was made at a rally on Sunday (yesterday) attended by over 100 ambos.

The two announcements have been welcomed by local Member of Parliament, Mr Tony Piccolo who said the additional local beds are part of Labor’s fully costed and funded plan with 300 extra hospital beds, 100 extra doctors and 300 extra nurses, across the health system.

“The extra beds will provide additional capacity to treat more patients, and enable patients stuck in emergency departments to move to a better setting for recovery and rehabilitation,” said Mr Piccolo.

“The additional hospital beds will free up blocked emergency departments, enabling flow of patients through the hospitals. This will allow paramedics to transfer patients into EDs as soon as they arrive at hospitals - and help to stop ramping of ambulances, and subsequent delayed responses to emergencies.”

“Labor's comprehensive and fully costed ambulance package is aimed at helping to fix the Marshall Liberal Government's record-breaking ramping crisis, which is crippling the hospital system, and leading to Adelaide recording the nation's worst ambulance response times.”

“While the Marshall Liberal Government has been busy picking fights with paramedics and failing to act on ambulance ramping, Labor has been listening to ambos and developing a plan to help reduce ambulance response times and help fix the ramping crisis.”

Mr Piccolo said under the Marshall Liberal Government, we now have the worst ambulance ramping in South Australia's history. In 2021, ramping was 485% worse than just four years ago before the Liberals came into government.

“The bottom line is Labor can make more investments in health than the Liberals because it is scrapping Steven Marshall’s $662 million inner-city Basketball Stadium and instead investing the money in health,” Mr Piccolo said.

Labor has now announced 242 additional hospital beds, and 20 more drug rehabilitation beds and 20 more mental health community beds, with at least 60 more hospital beds to be announced. The new beds investment announced so far represents $331 million in capital and $201 million in recurrent expenditure.

SA Labor Leader Peter Malinauskas said only Labor has a comprehensive plan to help fix the ramping crisis and deliver the best health services right across South Australia.

Shadow Minister for Health and Wellbeing Chris Picton said the Liberals have spent most of their time in office with corporate liquidators trying to cut hospital beds and make frontline staff redundant – and that’s led us to extreme bed block in hospitals and caused the ambulance ramping crisis.