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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 174 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 2 June 2021 by Ms L. Mettam

Parliament: 41 Session: 1

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.