ELECTIVE SURGERY
174. Ms L. METTAM to the Minister for Health:
I
have a supplementary question. The minister may joke about this, but these are
patients who are suffering. Answer the question: when will the
suspension on these surgeries end; and can the minister now admit that we have
a health crisis in WA?
The
SPEAKER: Just before the minister
answers, member, you made a statement, and then you asked a supplementary
question. I would ask that in future you just ask the supplementary question.
Mr R.H.
COOK replied:
What we need to do is make sure that
we get to those patients who need urgent care for their acute conditions in the
clinically required time. That is why we continue to adapt our elective surgery
waitlists to ensure that we can get to those patients in critical need. This is
what we would expect of any hospital and health system: to make sure that we
get to those who are most urgent and in need of care in the first instance, and
then get to those others who can wait a short while.
Obviously, we apologise to anyone who has had to have their
surgery rescheduled, but this has always been the way of our public health system—adapting to the needs as those
needs arise. Our health service providers are doing a great job, and we
will continue to make sure that we can get to all those people who need their
surgery within the clinically required time to continue to provide great health
care for the people of Western Australia.