WA premier concedes ambulance ramping a ‘challenge’ as wait times blow out before winter begins

West Australian Premier Roger Cook admits ambulance ramping in the state is a “challenge”, as new figures reveal the hours that patients spent waiting to be admitted to hospital has again hit record highs.

The opposition has seized on new figures showing ramping was at a new monthly high for May, with 5383 hours spent waiting at WA hospitals in the month.

Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas said it was the second time this year ambulance ramping had reached record levels, with another peak in February – “and winter has only just begun”.

“Let’s not forget, these figures come after three consecutive record months of ambulance ramping in July, August and September last year, culminating in more than 7200 ramping hours in September –the highest monthly total ever recorded in WA hospitals,” Zempilas said.

“After more than nine years in office, Labor can no longer blame anyone else.

“Month after month, patients and paramedics are being left waiting outside emergency departments because this government has failed to deliver the hospital capacity West Australians need.”

Opposition health spokeswoman Libby Mettam pointed to comments Cook made before Labor took power in 2017, and which have haunted him through his time managing the state’s Health portfolio and as premier.

“When Roger Cook was shadow health minister, he described 1000 hours of ambulance ramping as a horror story,” Mettam said.

“In February this year, WA recorded more than four times that figure. Now in May, we have seen more than five times that amount.”

Speaking to media on Monday, Cook said ramping was a challenge – albeit a “challenge that every hospital system around Australia is having to deal with at the moment”.

“It comes with the ageing population, the increase of acute illnesses that present to our [emergency departments],” he said.

Cook pointed to the government’s investment in WA’s health system, including the $9.1 billion allocated to health in May’s state budget, as well as last week’s announcement that Labor had brokered a deal to pave the way for Bethesda Health Care’s takeover of Mount Hospital from the beleaguered Healthscope.

“Ultimately, the health system is a dynamic system, and that means that you’ve got increasing challenges in different areas all the time,” he said.

The premier said more beds would come on stream under the government’s $400 million winter strategy, but, questioned on the rollout of that funding, conceded some of the measures under the strategy were about “future capacity”.

However, he sidestepped questions on whether the $578,807 annual salary for a new deputy director-general, chief operating officer role in the state’s health bureaucracy would have been better spent on hospitals.

“I appreciate that people see these salaries, and they sometimes think that they’re generous,” Cook said.

“What we want to do is engage the very best people, the very best people to run our very large hospital system.”

Mettam said the government had years to prepare for growing demand, “yet patients and frontline health workers are again heading into winter under enormous pressure”.