WA ambulance ramping figures for December break fresh record

In that year, 9795 hours of ambulance ramping were recorded; this rose to 15,415 in 2018, 24,412 in 2019, and 25,929 in 2020. The hours had also doubled since last July.

Mr Kirkup said the government was not opening every bed and every ward possible, or responding to a surge in mental health patients with adequate urgency, and made excuses rather than acknowledge or deal with the issue.

“The people of WA deserve far better than that from their state’s health system,” he said. “The government cannot blame COVID.”

But COVID was to blame, according to WA Premier Mark McGowan, who said at a press conference on Tuesday Labor had criticised the Liberals’ performance on ramping before the pandemic was an issue.

Mr McGowan said the system’s current slowness was due to unavoidable COVID-related precautions and delays.

Elective surgery was shut down for three months during the first wave and the backlog had not yet cleared, putting pressure on the system.

Enhanced hospital cleaning protocols had also slowed things down and emergency departments now had to divide patients into two streams; respiratory and non-respiratory, Mr McGowan said. There had also been “extraordinary growth” in mental health presentations.

But the government was opening 77 new emergency department beds across the state in an attempt to deal with the issue and Mr McGowan insisted the system was well prepared to cope with an outbreak, despite Australian Medical Association WA president Andrew Miller’s claims to the contrary.

The 77 new beds fell short of the 400 Dr Miller called for as he warned WA’s system would not be able to handle a COVID outbreak.

Dr Miller said on average ambulances were waiting about an hour before people could get into hospital.

This was worse than ramping times in the United Kingdom, which was reportedly denying heart attack and stroke victims entry to hospitals.

“We can’t cope with a COVID outbreak … we are very much behind the eight-ball; we cannot afford to have COVID-19 hitting our community, or hospitals. We have no confidence at all that our system can cope, because right now it’s not coping at all,” Dr Miller said.

“This is not an emergency department problem, it’s a whole-of-hospital problem.

“The people assume in WA that if you pick up the phone and dial 000 and tell them you have got a real life-threatening emergency that you’ll get pretty quick access to the emergency systems.

“That’s not happening in Western Australia at the moment. That’s why doctors and nurses are putting their hands up.”

Assistant opposition health spokesman Tony Kristicevic said the medical profession had continually raised concerns about this matter.

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“People will die, there is no doubt about that … the system should be at its most capable,” he said.

“We have been COVID-free for nine months and have a government with multibillion-dollar surpluses.”

Mr McGowan said the Liberal and National parties were nitpicking, dubbing their performance “disgraceful” and accusing them of trying to score political points to undermine the government’s achievements over the past year.