McGOWAN
GOVERNMENT — HEALTH PERFORMANCE
534. Ms L. METTAM to the Minister for Health:
I refer to the McGowan Labor
government's election commitment that WA Labor will make patients the
priority, give patients the attention they deserve and properly manage our
hospitals and health services and that its policies are smart, innovative and
affordable, and include the fresh ideas our state needs to make our hospitals
smarter and more responsive.
(1) Given former
shadow Minister for Health Roger Cook's comments that having patients
in ward corridors was unacceptable, how can the government now endorse this
practice?
(2) With people
waiting more than 24 hours to be seen in an emergency department, does the
minister accept that the government's policies are more of a dismal
failure than smart and innovative?
Ms A.
SANDERSON replied:
(1)–(2) I
enjoy how the member for Vasse structures her questions to be so broad that I can
answer them in any way that I choose. Learning to ask insightful questions is
the job of the opposition, and she has been in it for a while, so it always
astounds me.
Our
record on hospital and capital investment stands for itself. There has been no
greater capital investment in our hospital system than by the McGowan
government. There has been no greater capital investment. I recall a former
government that could not even open the Perth Children's Hospital. It
could build the hospital but it could not open the hospital. The former
Minister for Health and the former Treasurer and Minister for Finance opened
that hospital. In less than 12 months, this government has put 420 beds into
our system. That is more than twice Perth Children's Hospital's
bed capacity. That is the scale of the beds that we have put on in less than 12
months. We have lifted our FTE by 13 per cent in the last two years. It went
backwards under the former government. It went backwards by nearly 1 000 staff—let
alone the attrition, it went backwards under the former government. The Health
budget now makes up 31 per cent of the state budget. It has increased
exponentially under this government and year on year on year. That is our
investment in hospitals, beds and, importantly, people.