WA has again broken the record for the number of hours ambulances spent stranded outside hospitals with patients on board.
A total of 7074 hours ramped in August beats the record of 7007 hours that was set in July, despite category two and three elective surgery being reduced to ease demand for hospital beds that was resulting in access block.
It comes a day after Roger Cook rejected calls for an inquiry into the State’s health system, as a senior Royal Perth Hospital doctor warned that excessive wait times are putting lives at risk.
“One doctor might have a view about these things, but we know that we have a plan to continue to address the needs of healthcare in WA, making sure that every Western Australian, no matter where they live, has the opportunity to gain appropriate access to healthcare” the Premier told reporters in Bunbury on Sunday.
“The Liberals, their one and only promise when it comes to healthcare is that we should have a Royal Commission so what they’re saying is that they’ve got a policy to have a policy. We have policies.
“We have a plan and we’ll implement that plan to expand healthcare, including the expansion of the Royal Perth Hospital ED, a $100 million commitment, expanding the ED at St John of God Hospital in Midland, by another $100 million. We’ve already got upgrades happening at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.
“No Government has invested more than my Government in healthcare infrastructure and healthcare workforce to continue to improve the capacity of our system.”
Ambulance response times have not met St John WA targets since August 2020.
Health Department figures show that Tuesday was the busiest day last week, when 2,867 people attended hospital EDs and the median wait time blew out to almost 90 minutes for “urgent” triage three patients.
More to come.
