WA RECORDS WORST MAY EVER FOR AMBULANCE RAMPING AS WINTER BEGINS

Western Australia’s chronic shortage of hospital beds has been laid bare as hospital emergency departments have recorded their worst May on record for ambulance ramping, with 5383 hours marking a new monthly high for May.

That represents a more than 1000 per cent increase since WA Labor came to office in 2017, when May ambulance ramping totalled just 466 hours - a stark indictment of a Government that has spent nearly a decade failing to address growing pressure across our hospitals.

Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas said Labor had not built one new hospital in ten years and the latest figures confirmed Premier Roger Cook and his five Health Ministers had no solutions to the State’s ambulance ramping crisis.

“This is the second time this year ambulance ramping has reached record levels - first in February, and now again in May - and winter has only just begun,” Mr Zempilas said.

“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 7,200 ramping hours in September - the highest monthly total ever recorded in WA hospitals.

“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.”

Shadow Health Minister Libby Mettam said chronic hospital bed shortages, delays in moving elderly patients into appropriate aged care, and a failure to invest in new hospital infrastructure had all no new public hospital in nearly a decade had all contributed to worsening bed block across the system.

“When Roger Cook was Shadow Health Minister, he described 1,000 hours of ambulance ramping as a horror story,” Ms 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.

“That should alarm every Western Australian because winter has barely started.

“On average, ambulances were ramped for more than 173 hours every single day during May.

“The reality is this Government has run out of excuses. It has had years to prepare for growing demand, yet patients and frontline health workers are once again heading into winter under enormous pressure.

“Western Australians deserve a health system where ambulances can get patients into emergency departments quickly, not one where record ramping has become the new normal.”