PAEDIATRIC SERVICES — WAITLIST
210. Ms L. METTAM to the Minister for Health:
Why are parents being forced to wait
up to two years to see a paediatrician in this state while their children
languish with undiagnosed and untreated conditions on a waitlist?
Mr R.H.
COOK replied:
Our health system is under enormous
pressure—everyone knows that. In particular, at Perth Children's
Hospital we have seen an increase of over 80 per cent in the number of children
presenting with eating disorders since July last year. That is an example of
just the explosion that we have seen in healthcare services in WA. Obviously,
that puts the system under significant pressure, which is why there has been
such a significant expansion of hospital beds and staff that this state has
ever seen. Over 117 beds will be added to our system by August this year—81
of those are already open. That does not
include the extra 20 beds that we opened at PCH alone. As part of that program,
we are expanding our nursing workforce by 600 over the next two years, which
means that 1 000 nurse graduates will get an opportunity to be recruited into
the health system this year, and another 1 000 next year. This massive
expansion of our workforce and our capacity is all about responding to the
needs of the Western Australian community.
Those needs have significantly increased in volume, acuity and severity since
the COVID-19 pandemic of last year. Every health system around Australia
is suffering from that fate. The difference in Western Australia, of course, is
that the government has looked after the state's finances and ensured
that we got over the debt and deficit years of the Barnett government. That has
meant that in times of strain and demand on these sorts of health services, we
are in a position to fund their expansion. As I said, 117 new beds will be
brought on by August this year, and there will be 600 new nurses over the next
two years, over and above those nurses we would have otherwise recruited. Two
hundred of those young nurses are on the wards today. We have a plan for how we
will respond to this situation—a situation that is confronting all
health services throughout the country.