STANDING COMMITTEE ON
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION —INQUIRY INTO THE DELIVERY OF AMBULANCE SERVICES
IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA
691. Ms L. METTAM to the Minister for Health:
I have a supplementary question.
Given the Productivity Commission's report, which highlights the
efficiencies of St John, what assurance will
the minister provide that he will reflect on the report in the best interests
of the patients and the volunteers of Western Australia?
The SPEAKER: Minister, it is
quite a hypothetical question; the report has not yet been delivered. If you do
respond, I would ask you to do so briefly.
Mr R.H.
COOK replied:
I
simply draw the Parliament's attention to some very important
statistics. In 2019, St John Ambulance had 8 145 call-outs. In 2021,
that has now reached almost 10 000—9 751—a 20 per cent increase
since 2019. This is putting untold pressure upon our ambulance services and the
hospitals that they take patients to. As a result of that, I am not surprised
that Parliament has seen fit to examine St John Ambulance: Are we doing enough
to support it? Are there other ways that we can better support the great work
that it does?
I was advised of a statistic the
other day by the South Metropolitan Health Service, which said that 60 per cent
of ambulance arrivals at Rockingham General Hospital are not admitted—that
is, well over half the people who are brought
to the hospital by ambulance walk away or drive themselves home from the
hospital. There is something going on out there that I think it is
important to inquire into. I do not reflect, as the member for Vasse is doing,
that somehow St John Ambulance is letting us
down or that we need to attack it. I think it is doing a great job. It is one
of the best ambulance services in this country, and if there is more
that we can do to support it, then we will take the opportunity to do so.
The SPEAKER: Members, that
concludes question time.