❓ Mr. Barron-Sullivan questions the Minister for Health about ambulance bypass incidents and overcrowding at Royal Perth Hospital, referencing a previous statement by the Premier. The Minister defends the government's actions, citing improvements in ambulance diversion rates and increased funding.
AnsweredQoN 533Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
I refer the minister to the Premier’s campaign launch speech on 4 February 2001 in which he said - When ambulances are forced to drive the streets of Perth to find an emergency ward that can accept patients, that is a crisis. (1) Why did the Government allow at least two requests for ambulance bypass by medical staff to be refused yesterday, leaving patients outside in ambulances? I might add that a patient is in there now who, when I visited the hospital earlier today, had been in the emergency department ward for 35 hours. (2) Is the minister aware that clinical staff - nurses and doctors - at Royal Perth Hospital’s emergency department today had to threaten to go on strike to get approval for ambulance bypass amid serious clinical concerns for patient safety? They had to threaten to go on strike to get a diversion. (3) Will the minister now admit that his new policy is aimed at covering up the extent of problems at the State’s hospital emergency departments to prevent the Premier’s comments coming back to bite him during the coming election campaign? Mr J.A. McGINTY
AnswerView source ↗
(1)-(3) Today is a typically busy day in our State’s emergency departments; it is nothing more or less than that. The number of patients in each emergency department is not particularly excessive. At 1.00 pm today Royal Perth Hospital had 47 patients in the emergency department, and it had 44 beds to meet that number; Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital had 40 patients and 42 beds; and Fremantle Hospital had 34 patients and 36 beds in the emergency department. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: Are they all overcrowded? Mr J.A. McGINTY: No. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
(2) Is the minister aware that clinical staff - nurses and doctors - at Royal Perth Hospital’s emergency department today had to threaten to go on strike to get approval for ambulance bypass amid serious clinical concerns for patient safety? They had to threaten to go on strike to get a diversion. (3) Will the minister now admit that his new policy is aimed at covering up the extent of problems at the State’s hospital emergency departments to prevent the Premier’s comments coming back to bite him during the coming election campaign? Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: (1)-(3) Today is a typically busy day in our State’s emergency departments; it is nothing more or less than that. The number of patients in each emergency department is not particularly excessive. At 1.00 pm today Royal Perth Hospital had 47 patients in the emergency department, and it had 44 beds to meet that number; Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital had 40 patients and 42 beds; and Fremantle Hospital had 34 patients and 36 beds in the emergency department. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: Are they all overcrowded? Mr J.A. McGINTY: No. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
(3) Will the minister now admit that his new policy is aimed at covering up the extent of problems at the State’s hospital emergency departments to prevent the Premier’s comments coming back to bite him during the coming election campaign? Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: (1)-(3) Today is a typically busy day in our State’s emergency departments; it is nothing more or less than that. The number of patients in each emergency department is not particularly excessive. At 1.00 pm today Royal Perth Hospital had 47 patients in the emergency department, and it had 44 beds to meet that number; Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital had 40 patients and 42 beds; and Fremantle Hospital had 34 patients and 36 beds in the emergency department. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: Are they all overcrowded? Mr J.A. McGINTY: No. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: (1)-(3) Today is a typically busy day in our State’s emergency departments; it is nothing more or less than that. The number of patients in each emergency department is not particularly excessive. At 1.00 pm today Royal Perth Hospital had 47 patients in the emergency department, and it had 44 beds to meet that number; Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital had 40 patients and 42 beds; and Fremantle Hospital had 34 patients and 36 beds in the emergency department. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: Are they all overcrowded? Mr J.A. McGINTY: No. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
(1)-(3) Today is a typically busy day in our State’s emergency departments; it is nothing more or less than that. The number of patients in each emergency department is not particularly excessive. At 1.00 pm today Royal Perth Hospital had 47 patients in the emergency department, and it had 44 beds to meet that number; Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital had 40 patients and 42 beds; and Fremantle Hospital had 34 patients and 36 beds in the emergency department. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: Are they all overcrowded? Mr J.A. McGINTY: No. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: Are they all overcrowded? Mr J.A. McGINTY: No. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
Mr J.A. McGINTY: No. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
(2) Is the minister aware that clinical staff - nurses and doctors - at Royal Perth Hospital’s emergency department today had to threaten to go on strike to get approval for ambulance bypass amid serious clinical concerns for patient safety? They had to threaten to go on strike to get a diversion. (3) Will the minister now admit that his new policy is aimed at covering up the extent of problems at the State’s hospital emergency departments to prevent the Premier’s comments coming back to bite him during the coming election campaign? Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: (1)-(3) Today is a typically busy day in our State’s emergency departments; it is nothing more or less than that. The number of patients in each emergency department is not particularly excessive. At 1.00 pm today Royal Perth Hospital had 47 patients in the emergency department, and it had 44 beds to meet that number; Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital had 40 patients and 42 beds; and Fremantle Hospital had 34 patients and 36 beds in the emergency department. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: Are they all overcrowded? Mr J.A. McGINTY: No. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
(3) Will the minister now admit that his new policy is aimed at covering up the extent of problems at the State’s hospital emergency departments to prevent the Premier’s comments coming back to bite him during the coming election campaign? Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: (1)-(3) Today is a typically busy day in our State’s emergency departments; it is nothing more or less than that. The number of patients in each emergency department is not particularly excessive. At 1.00 pm today Royal Perth Hospital had 47 patients in the emergency department, and it had 44 beds to meet that number; Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital had 40 patients and 42 beds; and Fremantle Hospital had 34 patients and 36 beds in the emergency department. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: Are they all overcrowded? Mr J.A. McGINTY: No. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: (1)-(3) Today is a typically busy day in our State’s emergency departments; it is nothing more or less than that. The number of patients in each emergency department is not particularly excessive. At 1.00 pm today Royal Perth Hospital had 47 patients in the emergency department, and it had 44 beds to meet that number; Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital had 40 patients and 42 beds; and Fremantle Hospital had 34 patients and 36 beds in the emergency department. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: Are they all overcrowded? Mr J.A. McGINTY: No. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
(1)-(3) Today is a typically busy day in our State’s emergency departments; it is nothing more or less than that. The number of patients in each emergency department is not particularly excessive. At 1.00 pm today Royal Perth Hospital had 47 patients in the emergency department, and it had 44 beds to meet that number; Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital had 40 patients and 42 beds; and Fremantle Hospital had 34 patients and 36 beds in the emergency department. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: Are they all overcrowded? Mr J.A. McGINTY: No. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: Are they all overcrowded? Mr J.A. McGINTY: No. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
Mr J.A. McGINTY: No. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What about the Joondalup Health Campus? Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
Mr J.A. McGINTY: The member should listen to the figures I am giving him. It is true that at Royal Perth Hospital today ambulance diversion was called for at 12.15 pm and was approved. The first request was made some 25 minutes earlier. By its very nature, emergency medicine is performed under pressure - often under very great pressure. We all owe the doctors and nurses who work in our emergency departments a vote of thanks for the tremendous job they do to work under that pressure. There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
There is an old saying that the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. Members opposite, including the member for Mitchell, yap and bark around the edges of this debate despite knowing that the caravan has well and truly moved on. I will tell members about the tremendous turnaround that has occurred in our emergency departments this winter. It is appropriate that I say this now because we are coming to the end of the winter period. It has been noted in the past two weeks that there has been a decline in the underlying pressure on our emergency departments as we move from winter to spring. There is a very good reason why that has occurred. Five specific government initiatives have been targeted at making sure that our emergency departments can deliver excellence in care and do what they are there to do: to receive and treat patients rather than to turn them away, which the Opposition advocates. I make no apology for a system that minimises ambulance diversion in this State. The Government wants ambulances to take patients to emergency departments and have the patients treated there. I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
I will tell members what those very successful initiatives are. The first initiative involved spending some $34.7 million on a new contract with St John Ambulance to put more ambulances on the road and to employ 100 new ambulance officers. As a result of that initiative, ambulance diversion in this State during winter - from the beginning of May until today - has decreased by 82 per cent. I repeat: the number of hours spent on ambulance diversions is down by 82 per cent. The number of hours spent on diversion at our teaching hospitals last winter was 1 101; this year it has decreased to just 202 hours. That is a tremendous success story. The member for Mitchell is an advocate for more ambulance diversions to turn away more patients from emergency departments. However, that is not the view of members on this side of the Chamber. We want emergency departments to have the capacity to treat people in their moment of need. So far this month up until yesterday, as winter has passed, hospitals had spent 19 hours on ambulance diversion. Last September hospitals had spent 199 hours on ambulance diversion. The number of triple diversions has fallen by 90 per cent from 55 last winter to six this winter. All these statistics are tremendous success stories that will not be recognised by the yapping of the dogs as the caravan moved on. The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
The second initiative we have undertaken is to provide $22 million to upgrade our hospital emergency departments. The third initiative is that this winter we have also provided another $20 million to open 338 extra beds during the winter months to enable our emergency departments to cope. Many of those winter beds will be kept open as we come out of winter so that they can be utilised for the extra $8 million elective surgery initiative that was announced last week. The fourth initiative is that an extra 1 156 full-time salaried nurses are now working in our government hospitals. That can be compared with the situation when we came to power in 2001, when there was a nursing shortage. These resources are dramatically turning around the performance of our emergency departments. Between May and August of this year, 43 913 people presented to the emergency departments of our three main hospitals. That is a 2.2 per cent increase on last year. There has been a 14 per cent reduction in the waiting time for treatment for category 4, or non-urgent, patients, and there has been an 18 per cent reduction in the waiting time for category 5 patients. In part that is attributable to the fifth initiative that I want to refer to, which is the creation of the general practitioner after-hours bulk-billing clinics at Royal Perth, Fremantle and, most recently, Joondalup hospitals, which has helped to slash the waiting times for patients in emergency departments. There has also been a 12 per cent reduction in the number of people who are required to wait for more than eight hours for a bed in our hospitals, which is another objective measure that is used within the system to indicate the success, or otherwise, of our initiatives in the emergency departments. All up, the hospitals have done tremendously well, and I congratulate them.
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