HOSPITALS
— DEMAND RESPONSE PLAN
28. Mr S.A. MILLMAN to the Minister for Health:
I refer to the unprecedented demand on health systems right
across the country. Can the minister advise the house how the McGowan Labor
government's demand response plan will bring additional beds into the
system, including at Royal Perth Hospital, and can the minister outline to the
house how this plan will support the continued delivery of world-class health
care and put patients first?
Mr R.H. COOK replied:
I thank the member for Mount Lawley, the parliamentary
secretary, for joining me today at Royal Perth Hospital to announce the opening of the first 20 beds at Royal Perth Hospital as
part of our 117-bed hospital expansion plan.
Can I first of all start by acknowledging that today is
International Day of the Midwife. Once again, I am sure that I join all members
in acknowledging midwives right across our great state and country and the
wonderful work they do, in particular at King Edward Memorial Hospital for
Women, where we are experiencing similar demand at the moment. I am not quite sure what was happening eight or nine
months ago, Madam Speaker, but King Eddy's is very busy at the
moment! We are recruiting more midwives and doing our best to make sure that
they have all the equipment that they need to work.
As I have said recently in
this place, all our hospital systems right across the country are suffering
from an increased step change in demand. This is represented in the
volumes of people coming in, the acuity with which they come, the increase in
mental health patients and also the impact that long-stay patients,
particularly those waiting for NDIS assessments and referrals, are having on
patient flow. All our hospitals right across the country are suffering from a huge
increase in demand. The McGowan government's demand response plan is
all about making sure that our hospitals have the equipment and the staff they
need to make sure that we can adapt to this new environment.
We have 95 new emergency
department beds that are either under construction or soon will be, as part of
the biggest expansion of emergency
department capacity in the state's history. This includes an election
commitment for two new mental health
emergency centres and behavioural assessment urgent care clinics, at Rockingham
of 10 beds and at Armadale hospital
of nine beds. Our ED expansion plan also includes beds at Sir Charles Gairdner
Hospital and at the Midland and
Joondalup emergency departments. Of course, as the members for Mandurah, Murray–Wellington
and Dawesville will tell us, in Peel the newly expanded ED that opened
in February adds a fast-track triage area, new waiting room and seven-bed
short-stay unit.
Along with EDs, we are increasing our inpatient hospital
beds, with more than 500 new beds being added to our WA public hospitals, 95 in
emergency departments, as I mentioned, and 117 extra beds from existing stock
across the Perth and Peel area. Today, as I said, I opened 26 of these beds at
Royal Perth Hospital. Last week, 24 beds were opened in Fremantle Hospital, and
new beds at Osborne Park Hospital and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital will open
in July, in addition to the more than 300 beds coming online as part of our
significant health infrastructure program, which includes Geraldton Health
Campus, Bunbury Hospital, Joondalup Health Campus and Peel Health Campus with,
as I said, a $152 million development.
Beds alone are not the answer. We need staff to run those
beds, nurses to stand by them and doctors to treat patients. Over the past year
of COVID-19, which has hindered our efforts to attract staff from abroad and
outside Western Australia, we have been working tirelessly to make sure that we
increase that number. The McGowan government is providing positions for an
extra 600 newly qualified nurses at WA hospitals over the next two years. This
includes 400 registered and enrolled nurses announced as part of our election
campaign. More than 200 of these nurses are already in the wards today, working
in both general and mental health areas. This will mean that we will have 1 000
new nurses this year, in 2021, and 1 000 new nurses in 2022, not only providing
an important boost to our health system, but also making sure that we provide
great careers and opportunities for young people coming into our health system.
We have been working hard on this program since the back end of 2020, when we
saw a significant change in the way that people are presenting to our hospitals
as we came out of the initial stage of the pandemic. We have a plan and we are
working to that plan. We can see that plan starting to work. The McGowan
government will continue to put patients first.