New data has revealed almost a dozen medical disasters in South Australia's public hospital system in the 2015-16 financial year, including some patients requiring extra surgery to remove objects left inside them after procedures.

Key points: Eleven medical disasters were reported at SA public hospitals in 2015/16 alone

Eleven medical disasters were reported at SA public hospitals in 2015/16 alone There were 44 incidents over five years, including 19 of objects being left inside patients

There were 44 incidents over five years, including 19 of objects being left inside patients Four patients died as a result of medication errors in the same time frame

The Productivity Commission's Report on Government Services 2018 — released today — revealed 11 catastrophic episodes in South Australian public hospitals in the 2015-16 financial year.

It revealed three instances of patients requiring extra surgery to remove objects left inside them after surgeries, and four cases where patients had committed suicide in inpatient units.

There was also a case of an unspecified procedure which involved "the wrong patient or body part resulting in death or major permanent loss of function".

Details about what went wrong in that case were not contained in the report.

The report also revealed a number of botched cases or traumatic incidents of various kinds over a five-year period from 2011-12 to 2015-16.

In that timeframe, four patients died as a result of suspected medication errors, and there were a total of 19 cases of medical instruments or other material being left inside patients.

Six mothers died as a result of antenatal or neonatal conditions, but there were no known cases of babies being sent home with the wrong families.

"It's always regrettable when mistakes happen anywhere within government and that is no different when that occurs in a surgical context," Health Minister Peter Malinauskas said.

"We do know that the number of surgical errors that are occurring in South Australia has been declining for some time, including throughout the course of last year."

Sentinel events in SA public hospitals 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 Procedures involving the wrong patient or body part resulting in death or major permanent loss of function 0 0 0 0 1 Suicide of a patient in an inpatient unit 1 1 3 2 4 Retained instruments or other material after surgery requiring re-operation or further surgical procedure 5 5 1 5 3 Intravascular gas embolism resulting in death or neurological damage 0 0 1 0 0 Haemolytic blood transfusion reaction resulting from ABO (blood group) incompatibility 0 1 0 0 1 Medication error leading to the death of a patient reasonably believed to be due to incorrect administration of drugs 1 0 1 2 0 Maternal death associated with pregnancy, birth or the puerperium 2 2 0 0 2 Infant discharged to the wrong family 0 0 0 0 0 Total 9 9 6 9 11

However, the claim is not fully supported by the data, which showed that the 11 so-called "sentinel events" in 2015-16 were the highest in the five-year period.

The Opposition said the data also showed ambulance response times had worsened, and that overdue elective surgery had increased.

Health spokesman Stephen Wade blamed the Transforming Health plan for the adverse findings.

"Timely treatment is critical to delivering positive outcomes for patients and South Australia is going backwards in key areas," he said.

"These figures confirm the importance of the Liberal plan to use the surgical facilities at the Repat and the importance of restoring the [high dependency unit] at Modbury Hospital."

The release of the findings coincided with the State Government announcing its plan to expand a program to reduce waiting times at Flinders Medical Centre to other hospitals.

Mr Malinauskas said the initiative, which was introduced early last year, had slashed emergency department waits by 21 per cent.