Hospitals—Elective surgery cancellations
624. Hon Philip Scottto theparliamentary secretary representing the Minister for Health:
During the declared COVID-19 state of emergency, the government repeatedly told us that draconian measures such as border closures, vaccine mandates and lockdowns were to keep everyone safe. Now an undeclared state of emergency is playing out in our hospitals, with elective surgeries buttonholed across Perth yesterday.
(1) The president-elect of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine recently stated that WA has "built a health system that has no surge capacity and can't cope with the natural fluctuations and disease patterns". Can the minister confirm whether the health system has no surge capacity and cannot cope with the natural fluctuations in disease patterns?
(2) The WA President of the Australian Medical Association appeared on Perth radio this week and said, "We don't have the hospital system that's ready to deal with this amount of unwell people." Can the minister confirm whether the health system is currently unable to properly service the amount of unwell people in WA?
(3) Given these damning statements by medical professionals, is the pandemic mantra of "keep everyone safe" unachievable for this government, even with the pandemic behind us?
The President: Honourable member, I might ask that you familiarise yourself with standing order 105(1), particularly the bit about concise questions, before we come back for the next session.
Hon Pierre Yang replied:
I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. The following answer has been provided by the Minister for Health.
(1)–(3) The Western Australian health system's proactive measures taken this week were to manage a surge in demand in our emergency departments, prioritising those who need the most urgent care to receive it. The safety of patients and ensuring that they receive the best possible care is a priority and why the WA health system has taken steps to ensure urgent surgeries continue, and patient flow and demand is being managed collaboratively between our health service providers and the State Health Operations Centre.
