South Australia's corruption watchdog is "very confident" corruption exists within the state's troubled health department but says he doesn't have the necessary resources to conduct a thorough investigation.
Independent Commissioner Against Corruption Bruce Lander says record-keeping is so poor within SA Health that's it's been almost impossible for him to determine the true extent of the issues, including the level of maladministration.
But he says he's aware of inappropriate arrangements between the department and clinicians and between the department and other suppliers and contractors.
"We know what the problems are, we just find it frustrating that in the course of our investigations to find that we cannot identify, with the necessary precision, the arrangements that were entered into between health and its employees," Mr Lander told reporters on Wednesday.
"Record-keeping within health is so bad and the arrangements are so vague that you can't precisely say what the arrangements were or should have been and it's very difficult to identify corruption.
"Better record-keeping, in my opinion, would identify more corruption."
Asked if he believed there is corruption within SA Health Mr Lander said: "I'm very confident there is".
The commissioner said he had expressed his concerns to senior health officials and had considered exercising his powers to probe the practices, policies and procedures across the health bureaucracy.
But he said it would be an "enormous" job because of the size of the agency.
"I just don't have sufficient resources to do the whole of health at the moment," he said.
Health Minister Stephen Wade told reporters he would welcome a broader inquiry into the department but the question of resourcing was a matter for the commissioner.
Mr Wade said it was up to the commissioner to approach the attorney-general and the treasurer to seek any extra funding.
SA Health has been in the spotlight in recent months and years both for operational concerns with overcrowding at hospital emergency departments and because of continual budget blowouts.
Despite his concerns with SA Health, Mr Lander said he did not believe corruption was systemic across the SA public sector though it was "plagued" by maladministration and poor conduct.
"Both of which foster environments that make individual corruption possible and, in some instances, make it extremely difficult to detect," he said.
SA Health was contacted for comment.
Australian Associated Press
