The SA government has revised its major new health plan by retaining Noarlunga emergency department, but the Repatriation hospital will still to be closed.

Noarlunga Hospital will keep its emergency department under revisions made by the South Australian government to its major new health plan.

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But the Repatriation General Hospital will still be closed, despite a community campaign against the proposal.

In February, the government released its Transforming Health consolation paper which included the proposed closures of emergency departments at Noarlunga, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Modbury Hospital.

But emergency departments at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Lyell McEwin in the city's north, and Flinders Medical Centre in the south, would become "super-sites", staffed by senior staff at all times.
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Premier Jay Weatherill on Tuesday released Transforming Health amendments which he said were the direct result of extensive consultation with clinicians and the community.

"Included in these changes are the decisions to retain a Community Emergency Department at Noarlunga Hospital, and Level Six neonatal services at Flinders Medical Centre," he said.

A walk-in emergency clinic had been proposed for Noarlunga, but the premier said it now will continue to be staffed by doctors and nurses and be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Health Minister Jack Snelling confirmed that surgical, rehabilitation, acute medical services and palliative care services would be relocated from the Repatriation General Hospital.

"But the reality is the current facilities were constructed in the 1940s and the buildings belong to the last century," he said, repeating his previous stand.

"They can't provide the spaces and equipment and layout needed for modern medical treatments."

Opposition health spokesman Stephen Wade said the government had refused to listen to the wave of concern from the community and health professionals.

"Patients and their families will have to drive further and wait longer when they are at their most vulnerable and in need of emergency assistance," he said.

"Today as the Government pushes ahead with its plan to downgrade half of Adelaide's Emergency Departments, frontline staff are struggling to cope with the number of people presenting at EDs."

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