Premier Roger Cook refuses to apologise for ramping promise he made a decade ago, shifts blame to Commonwealth

Roger Cook has refused to apologise over record ambulance ramping which is seven times worse than when he promised a decade ago that Labor would fix the problem. The Premier was confronted over the state of WA’s hospital system on his first day back from leave on Monday, four days after The West Australian revealed that ramping had reached record levels in July. Mr Cook was shadow health minister in 2016 when he said that the Barnett government’s ramping record was “in tatters” and that WA Labor’s medi-hotels and urgent care clinics would “alleviate the congestion in our emergency departments”. Asked twice whether he owed voters an apology for breaking that promise, Mr Cook instead argued that Labor’s plan to boost capacity and divert less serious patients is a work in progress. “We have a plan and that’s the critique that I made of the government in 2015 when ambulance ramping was out of control, they didn’t have a plan,” he said. Mr Cook also faced questions over the treatment of a 84-year-old man who had to wait 11 hours inside emergency at Fiona Stanley Hospital for urgent care before being placed in the police holding room. He insisted the State’s health system was “one of the best” in the world. “It’s not always perfect but we know that when people go to a hospital they will generally be seen within a clinically appropriate period of time,” he said. “Yes, at times it is busy and, at times, you wait a bit longer. But by and large our health system remains one of the best in the nation.” The 84-year-old, who did not want to be named, used a maxi taxi to get to hospital on July 25 because St John WA told him that there was a 130-minute wait for an ambulance. His daughter told The West that he was admitted to a bed in a police holding room after waiting almost 12 hours in ED. Mr Cook said the family has not made a formal complaint. “Obviously, if we do receive a complaint they’ll investigate. People get to hospitals in a whole manner of different ways,” he said. “The fact that that person asked for an ambulance but one wasn’t available and they waited some time would suggest that, potentially, their needs in relation to that particular episode of care weren’t as high as other patients.” The Premier also wasn’t worried about a growing rate of code yellows declared in ED’s. “Code yellows are a normal part of the health system management to make sure that they maximise bed flow,” Mr Cook said. That explanation was rejected by anaesthetist and former Australian Medical Association WA President Andrew Miller, who warned lives are being put at risk. “Code yellow means the hospital’s been declared unsafe so if he’s saying that he’s saying that it’s normal that our hospitals are unsafe,” Dr Miller said. “We know that we’ve had tragic cases of patients dying on the ramp and that if they had been seen earlier they may well have been able to be saved. “It’s not good enough . . . this Government needs to build another hospital.” Mr Cook said record numbers of ambulances with patients stuck outside hospitals was “symptomatic” of a nationwide problem and took aim at the Federal Government. “We’re all challenged by this current arrangement. The way you could fix it, the way you could provide a national response is to ensure that the Commonwealth does more to fund aged-care beds,” he said. “We’ve already seen the Albanese Labor Government provide significant support to urgent care clinics which take pressure off the hospitals. I want to give them a bouquet in relation to that. “But I’ll also give them brick. They need to do better on aged care. Today we have upward of 250 people sitting in our hospitals waiting for an aged care bed.” Federal Aged Care Minister Sam Rae said the Albanese Government is investing almost $60 million in respite and hospital avoidance programs in WA. “We’ll continue to work closely with the WA Government,” he said. WA Health Director-General Shirley Bowen said last week that contingency plans to divert patients away from hospital EDs, including proposed Older Adult Hubs and more virtual care, will take time to relieve demand. “I won’t have that fully done for next winter, but hopefully over the two to three years it will take us to completely reform that,” she said. “We’re building capacity and I think next winter will be better. I would hope, because the flu season shouldn’t be as bad. “I would think it’s about two years before we should get this under control. I live in hope.” Mr Cook said that he would take Dr Bowen’s advice but was reluctant to be held to a two-year deadline to reverse the trend on ramping. “Health is a dynamic piece, so you’ll see things start to improve, you’ll see other areas come under pressure as the situation within the community changes. That’s the nature of health,” he said. Mr Cook said he would not read a letter from Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas calling on him to make the “worsening” hospital crisis his first order of business. “I haven’t read the letter from the Leader of the Opposition and I won’t. It’s essentially a media stunt,” he said. The Premier said upgrades of hospitals in Joondalup, Geraldton and Bunbury have been completed and referenced planned upgrades of emergency departments at Royal Perth Hospital and Midland, which do not have construction dates. A new women’s hospital in Murdoch is due to open in 2029. Hospital Infrastructure Minister John Carey wouldn’t be drawn on a date for a new hospital in Yanchep to service the growing northern suburbs. “I believe that our recent boost to Joondalup Hospital does address the current demands,” he said. “We are always looking to the future.” Pressed on the Australian Medical Association’s claim that about a thousand more beds were still needed, Mr Cook agreed more needed to be done. “These are the challenges of a growing economy,” he said. “We’ve grown beds by 900 since 2021 alone, that’s the equivalent of a new tertiary hospital in just the last four years. But we’ll need to do more and I take your point, there are always challenges associated with the speed of bringing these beds on. “I acknowledge that our growing population, the ageing population and the level of disease burden that comes with that means that we are going to continue to have health as our number one priority for investment around infrastructure.”