WA budget: Mark McGowan’s $2.5bn injection for ailing health system

Western Australia’s strained health system will get an ­additional $2.5bn to ease pressure on hospitals and reform the emergency department system.

Perth Children's Hospital. Picture: Getty Images

Western Australia’s strained health system will get an ­additional $2.5bn to ease pressure on hospitals and reform an emergency department system that was struggling even before Omicron took hold in January.

The McGowan government will spend $74.1m to shift long-term elderly and disabled patients from hospitals into care facilities in an attempt to free up hundreds of beds.

The government believes there are currently more than 120 people in WA hospitals who are waiting for a place in aged care, a factor contributing to unprecedented ­demand on the state’s health system. WA hospitals got an ­additional 342 beds this financial year but the state’s chronic skills shortage – driven by WA’s strict closed borders – contributed to enormous pressure on hospitals.

Ambulance ramping exploded and elective surgery waiting lists blew out as public and private hospitals competed to recruit and ­retain doctors and nurses in the first two years of the pandemic.

Premier Mark McGowan said on Thursday that an ­additional 512 medics – mostly doctors – and 1456 nurses had been hired for government hospitals in the first two years of the pandemic. In the next year, the WA government would spend an additional $8.1m recruiting international medical graduates and $3.7m for a pilot supporting ­Aboriginal people into health professions.

“While more beds and more nurses are essential in responding to record demand, staffing alone will not fix the systemic issues facing our emergency departments,” Mr McGowan said. “Better emergency care can only be achieved by doing things smarter. That’s why the budget includes $257.1m to ­improve ED capacity and address ambulance ramping.”

A new ministerial taskforce will oversee measures to ease pressure on the system now dealing with growing numbers of Covid-19 ­patients. On Thursday, there were 275 people with Covid-19 in WA hospitals, including eight in intensive care.

The taskforce will place a roaming registered nurse in each of the emergency departments of 15 hospitals for 24 hours a day. This is a direct response to the outcry over the death of seven-year-old Aishwarya Aswath at the Perth Children’s Hospital on April 3, 2021, when staff failed to address her parents’ concerns about the girl’s condition. Aishwarya’s parents waited with her in the emergency department for two hours – she had a temperature of 38.8C as she succumbed to sepsis.

There was also intense scrutiny of health resources in regional WA in April when an 80-year-old woman died while waiting half an hour for an ambulance to take her to Geraldton Regional Hospital 3.6km from her home.

The latest state budget includes $181m for new and expanded services for alcohol and other drugs services. There was brief respite for parts of the state’s mental system in the first year of the pandemic as drug runners were confounded by strict travel bans that included police-controlled borders. However, supplies of ice were resurgent in 2021 and this has been linked to an increased demand for some mental health services.

Since the last state budget in September, the McGowan government has promised to inject an additional $5.7bn into health and mental health by 2026.