Skip to main content
Home
  • The Legislative Assembly meets on 16/04/2024 (01:00 PM)
    Assembly sit 16/04/2024
  • The Legislative Council meets on 16/04/2024 (01:00 PM)
    Council sit 16/04/2024
  • The Public Administration meets on 08/04/2024 (10:00 AM)
    Committee meet 08/04/2024

Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 836 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 24 November 2021 by Ms L. Mettam

Parliament: 41 Session: 1

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.