Health Maintenance Audit Reveals Years of Neglect and Failure

Media Release | 15 January 2026

Libby Mettam
Shadow Health Minister
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The Health Maintenance Audit – Summary Report released today by the Cook Labor Government has exposed what West Australian patients and hospital staff have known for years — our hospitals are broken and underfunded, with no proactive plans for maintenance and renewing infrastructure.

Shadow Health Minister Libby Mettam said the report was damning of the Cook Government’s nearly 10 years of management of the state’s health infrastructure.

The report was commissioned after patients, frontline health workers, the media and the Opposition repeatedly raised reports of crumbling infrastructure in Western Australian hospitals — including mould and ventilation failures, contaminated water, ageing facilities, and equipment and plant that was well beyond end-of-life.

“It is crystal clear from this report that the Cook Government has been operating a minimally funded fix-it-when-it-breaks system of hospital maintenance with no system-wide planning,” Ms Mettam said.

“It is staggering that there are no proactive plans for maintenance and renewing hospital infrastructure.

“When nearly 80 per cent of your maintenance is reactive, as this audit shows, you aren’t strategically managing ageing assets, you’re in the business of crisis management.

“Labor’s failures are embedded in the system: maintenance is buried inside activity-based hospital funding, competing directly with clinical services — meaning hospital executives are forced to choose between fixing dangerous building failures or meeting patient demand.

“The shameful truth is that this audit was not the result of government leadership but the result of repeated public exposure of maintenance failures that put patients and staff at risk.”

Ms Mettam said West Australians deserved hospitals that were safe, modern, and fit for purpose — not hospitals where staff work around leaking roofs, mould, failing plumbing, and infrastructure that should have been replaced years ago.

The question needs to be asked, including of the Premier – himself a former Health Minister – and Ministers Sanderson and Hammat; were they aware, or were they warned, that this is how maintenance in hospitals was being handled,” she said.

“Labor can’t keep commissioning reviews after disasters emerge, then hoping the public forgets.

“WA hospitals need action, not announcements, business cases and excuses. There should be no higher priority than ensuring a safe environment for sick, injured and dying West Australians.”

MEDIA CONTACT: Graham Mason | 0419 194 792

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