SIR CHARLES GAIRDNER
HOSPITAL — CODE BLACK DECLARATION
836. Ms L. METTAM to the Minister for Health:
I refer to confirmation from the
North Metropolitan Health Service that there was a bed state black at Sir
Charles Gairdner Hospital yesterday. How many patients were discharged as a result
of this capacity issue; and what time was the bed state black resolved, or is
the bed status still black at this hospital?
Mr R.H.
COOK replied:
I
thank the member for the question. To make sure that people are familiar with
what is involved in a bed state black, in our hospitals there are a range of
processes that allow them the opportunity to alert staff in the emergency
departments and inpatient areas of the hospital about the status of capacity
and available beds. At any point in time, beds can be on any number of codes;
it may be for a minute, it may be for 30 minutes. I can confirm that yesterday
there was a code yellow for the ED at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital between
1500 hours and 2030 hours. I can confirm that it is not the case that there was
a bed state black at this time, but obviously code yellow means that we need
all staff to take the opportunity to discharge patients where appropriate and
ensure that everyone is vigilant for opportunities to make sure we have extra
capacity in the hospital at all times. I can guarantee the member that people
would have been discharged during that time; other people would have been
admitted. Hospitals—particularly hospitals like Sir Charles Gairdner
Hospital—are big institutions, where there are flows of many hundreds
of patients in the course of any one day.
This government is investing more
than any other government in history to increase the capacity of our hospital system, with the inclusion of 46 new beds in Sir
Charles Gairdner Hospital alone. Over the course of this government, we
have committed to increasing the capacity of our hospitals by over 900 beds
across our hospital system; that is the equivalent of a very large tertiary
hospital. As members will all appreciate, a significant amount of investment is
going into the bed capacity and the workforce capacity of our hospitals to make
sure that we can deal with the current peaks of demand and that we are ready
for any increase or surge in demand as a result of COVID-19.