CORONAVIRUS —
HOSPITALS — RAPID ANTIGEN TESTS
6. Dr K. STRATTON to the Minister for Health:
(1) Can the
minister outline to the house what measures the McGowan Labor government has
taken over the last two years to prepare our hospital system to deal with
increased cases of COVID-19?
(2) Can the minister
update the house on the procurement of rapid antigen tests and how they will be
used in Western Australia's emergency departments?
Ms A. SANDERSON replied:
(1)–(2) I
thank the member for Nedlands for the question. I know that she has a keen
interest in the health system and all things health because, like me, she
understands the fundamental importance of access to good quality health
services to our population.
We
all know that when coronavirus hit, the McGowan government put health first,
and we continue to take the approach that puts the health of Western Australians
first. That includes some of the highest vaccination rates in the world—99.3
per cent. I am waiting for the opposition's congratulations on that. We
are seeing that other countries are now taking our lead in mandating these
vaccination rates. We introduced public health and social measures, including the proof-of-vaccination
requirements and mask wearing, and we have also introduced the
COVID-care-at-home program. It is a free program for high-risk patients at home
to receive medical advice and care
whilst staying in their own homes. They are provided a kit with all the
equipment that they need. Should their condition deteriorate, they will then be
quickly transferred to hospital, not by the emergency department, but straight
into hospital. We are adding an extra 530 beds to the system; 530 beds is the
equivalent of a tertiary hospital. We
have marquees outside emergency departments with plentiful supplies of rapid
antigen tests for people coming into the emergency departments so that we can
screen and test those patients. Building on the work of my predecessor and the
Treasurer, we will see the roll out of a record $3.2 billion investment in health. Last year, an additional 1 259
nurses and midwives were employed by the health sector, and nearly 600 doctors last year alone, and 400 graduate doctors
were offered employment in February—400 in February, in this month. We have the capacity to surge up to 306
intensive care unit beds when needed.
We have also seen the outstanding
success of our RAT procurement program. Around the world, we are competing
globally with access to RATs and governments scrambling to get their hands on
RATs so that people can be screened and tested and continue about their
business and so that we do not see the critical breakdown of important public
services, freight and logistics, and of our police service and health service.
We have ordered 1.5 million RATs and we have 10 million to hand. We know that public
emergency departments are using them now. They are being distributed around the
state so that regional communities have
access to rapid testing. There will be programs for remote communities to come
into centres and pick up their RATs and kits. We have used this time
well, and we know that RATs provide greater protection for patients, staff and
community workers as we start to see increased numbers in hospitals. We saw the
chaos in the eastern states hospitals where patients were walking into emergency
departments without COVID and picking up COVID in hospital—and dying
from COVID in some instances. That is why we are
prepared and planning and taking an orderly approach to this outbreak and to
the slow increase in cases we are seeing. We are making sure our
hospitals, our regions and our communities have good access to RATs and good
access to testing.