❓ Dr. Hames questions the Minister for Health about discrepancies in reported hospital bed numbers and rising elective surgery waiting lists. The Minister responds by clarifying bed definitions, highlighting reductions in waiting lists since 1999, and addressing the Fiona Stanley hospital budget.
AnsweredQoN 174Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
I refer the minister to the clinical services consultation report of 2005, which shows that there are 708 beds at Royal Perth Hospital, 205 beds at Shenton Park hospital and 618 beds at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. However, internal reports show that Royal Perth Hospital has 168 fewer beds than the claimed 708, Shenton Park hospital has 36 fewer beds at 169 and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital has 88 fewer at 530. That is a total of 373 fewer beds than that stated in the report. With the waiting lists now at a year high, with 13 034 Western Australians awaiting elective surgery, will the minister commit to urgently returning these hospitals to the stated bed numbers? Mr J.A. McGINTY
AnswerView source ↗
I thank the member for some notice of the question, which I propose to answer briefly in three parts. The bed numbers outlined in the clinical services consultation report to which the member referred include all beds regardless of the type of bed. Internal reports often use different definitions depending on the purpose of the report. The most commonly used bed number in internal reports is the multiday active bed, which excludes beds that are temporarily closed for things such as renovations and also excludes beds that are solely for day-use only cases, such as chemotherapy, renal dialysis and some same-day surgery. Without knowing which internal report is being quoted, it is not possible to reconcile the differences. A winter plan has been prepared that will see the staged opening of beds across most of the hospitals in the metropolitan area to cope with the increased demand that occurs each winter, and I will provide more details of that later. The second part of the question referred to the elective surgery waiting lists. I am pleased to say that even though there has been a minor rise in the number of people awaiting surgery in the past two or three months, waiting lists for public hospital surgery has been cut by almost 6 000 patients since a record high in 1999 under the previous coalition government. The reduction of 6 000 patients on the waiting list has occurred at a time of ever-increasing demand by patients on the list for surgery, and it is directly the product of the additional money that we have put into specifically targeted elective surgery wait list reduction schemes. At the end of April, 16 120 people were waiting for elective surgery at public and privately managed public hospitals. The average waiting time was 4.77 months, or 143 days. This compares with January of last year when 18 745 people were waiting for elective surgery. That is a drop over that 16-month period of more than 2 620 patients. The government has spent nearly $1 billion on elective surgery in the past four years, and that accounts for 370 episodes of surgery in Western Australia. Although a variation of a couple of hundred in the past couple of months is cause for concern, and, as the member would know, unless this matter is tightly reined in and controlled, the waiting list will continue to blow out. We are determined to keep it down. I am sure that the commitment we made during the election campaign of an additional $10 million a year specifically to reduce the wait list will contribute to an ongoing reduction in the number of people awaiting elective surgery. The third matter I will deal with briefly relates to the question the member asked me yesterday about the calculation for the $420 million for the Fiona Stanley hospital. The calculation was arrived at by the Reid report and was relevant for the figures at the time. Obviously, inflation would need to be factored in. At that stage the hospital was proposed to be 84 000 square metres at a building cost of $5 000 per square metre, which adds up to $420 million. Of course, the final figure is likely to be different from the original estimate, pending further investigation of and discussion about services to be included in stage one and the possibility of the joint provision of services with other hospitals such as the St John of God hospital at Murdoch.
Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: I thank the member for some notice of the question, which I propose to answer briefly in three parts. The bed numbers outlined in the clinical services consultation report to which the member referred include all beds regardless of the type of bed. Internal reports often use different definitions depending on the purpose of the report. The most commonly used bed number in internal reports is the multiday active bed, which excludes beds that are temporarily closed for things such as renovations and also excludes beds that are solely for day-use only cases, such as chemotherapy, renal dialysis and some same-day surgery. Without knowing which internal report is being quoted, it is not possible to reconcile the differences. A winter plan has been prepared that will see the staged opening of beds across most of the hospitals in the metropolitan area to cope with the increased demand that occurs each winter, and I will provide more details of that later. The second part of the question referred to the elective surgery waiting lists. I am pleased to say that even though there has been a minor rise in the number of people awaiting surgery in the past two or three months, waiting lists for public hospital surgery has been cut by almost 6 000 patients since a record high in 1999 under the previous coalition government. The reduction of 6 000 patients on the waiting list has occurred at a time of ever-increasing demand by patients on the list for surgery, and it is directly the product of the additional money that we have put into specifically targeted elective surgery wait list reduction schemes. At the end of April, 16 120 people were waiting for elective surgery at public and privately managed public hospitals. The average waiting time was 4.77 months, or 143 days. This compares with January of last year when 18 745 people were waiting for elective surgery. That is a drop over that 16-month period of more than 2 620 patients. The government has spent nearly $1 billion on elective surgery in the past four years, and that accounts for 370 episodes of surgery in Western Australia. Although a variation of a couple of hundred in the past couple of months is cause for concern, and, as the member would know, unless this matter is tightly reined in and controlled, the waiting list will continue to blow out. We are determined to keep it down. I am sure that the commitment we made during the election campaign of an additional $10 million a year specifically to reduce the wait list will contribute to an ongoing reduction in the number of people awaiting elective surgery. The third matter I will deal with briefly relates to the question the member asked me yesterday about the calculation for the $420 million for the Fiona Stanley hospital. The calculation was arrived at by the Reid report and was relevant for the figures at the time. Obviously, inflation would need to be factored in. At that stage the hospital was proposed to be 84 000 square metres at a building cost of $5 000 per square metre, which adds up to $420 million. Of course, the final figure is likely to be different from the original estimate, pending further investigation of and discussion about services to be included in stage one and the possibility of the joint provision of services with other hospitals such as the St John of God hospital at Murdoch.
I thank the member for some notice of the question, which I propose to answer briefly in three parts. The bed numbers outlined in the clinical services consultation report to which the member referred include all beds regardless of the type of bed. Internal reports often use different definitions depending on the purpose of the report. The most commonly used bed number in internal reports is the multiday active bed, which excludes beds that are temporarily closed for things such as renovations and also excludes beds that are solely for day-use only cases, such as chemotherapy, renal dialysis and some same-day surgery. Without knowing which internal report is being quoted, it is not possible to reconcile the differences. A winter plan has been prepared that will see the staged opening of beds across most of the hospitals in the metropolitan area to cope with the increased demand that occurs each winter, and I will provide more details of that later. The second part of the question referred to the elective surgery waiting lists. I am pleased to say that even though there has been a minor rise in the number of people awaiting surgery in the past two or three months, waiting lists for public hospital surgery has been cut by almost 6 000 patients since a record high in 1999 under the previous coalition government. The reduction of 6 000 patients on the waiting list has occurred at a time of ever-increasing demand by patients on the list for surgery, and it is directly the product of the additional money that we have put into specifically targeted elective surgery wait list reduction schemes. At the end of April, 16 120 people were waiting for elective surgery at public and privately managed public hospitals. The average waiting time was 4.77 months, or 143 days. This compares with January of last year when 18 745 people were waiting for elective surgery. That is a drop over that 16-month period of more than 2 620 patients. The government has spent nearly $1 billion on elective surgery in the past four years, and that accounts for 370 episodes of surgery in Western Australia. Although a variation of a couple of hundred in the past couple of months is cause for concern, and, as the member would know, unless this matter is tightly reined in and controlled, the waiting list will continue to blow out. We are determined to keep it down. I am sure that the commitment we made during the election campaign of an additional $10 million a year specifically to reduce the wait list will contribute to an ongoing reduction in the number of people awaiting elective surgery. The third matter I will deal with briefly relates to the question the member asked me yesterday about the calculation for the $420 million for the Fiona Stanley hospital. The calculation was arrived at by the Reid report and was relevant for the figures at the time. Obviously, inflation would need to be factored in. At that stage the hospital was proposed to be 84 000 square metres at a building cost of $5 000 per square metre, which adds up to $420 million. Of course, the final figure is likely to be different from the original estimate, pending further investigation of and discussion about services to be included in stage one and the possibility of the joint provision of services with other hospitals such as the St John of God hospital at Murdoch.
The second part of the question referred to the elective surgery waiting lists. I am pleased to say that even though there has been a minor rise in the number of people awaiting surgery in the past two or three months, waiting lists for public hospital surgery has been cut by almost 6 000 patients since a record high in 1999 under the previous coalition government. The reduction of 6 000 patients on the waiting list has occurred at a time of ever-increasing demand by patients on the list for surgery, and it is directly the product of the additional money that we have put into specifically targeted elective surgery wait list reduction schemes. At the end of April, 16 120 people were waiting for elective surgery at public and privately managed public hospitals. The average waiting time was 4.77 months, or 143 days. This compares with January of last year when 18 745 people were waiting for elective surgery. That is a drop over that 16-month period of more than 2 620 patients. The government has spent nearly $1 billion on elective surgery in the past four years, and that accounts for 370 episodes of surgery in Western Australia. Although a variation of a couple of hundred in the past couple of months is cause for concern, and, as the member would know, unless this matter is tightly reined in and controlled, the waiting list will continue to blow out. We are determined to keep it down. I am sure that the commitment we made during the election campaign of an additional $10 million a year specifically to reduce the wait list will contribute to an ongoing reduction in the number of people awaiting elective surgery. The third matter I will deal with briefly relates to the question the member asked me yesterday about the calculation for the $420 million for the Fiona Stanley hospital. The calculation was arrived at by the Reid report and was relevant for the figures at the time. Obviously, inflation would need to be factored in. At that stage the hospital was proposed to be 84 000 square metres at a building cost of $5 000 per square metre, which adds up to $420 million. Of course, the final figure is likely to be different from the original estimate, pending further investigation of and discussion about services to be included in stage one and the possibility of the joint provision of services with other hospitals such as the St John of God hospital at Murdoch.
The third matter I will deal with briefly relates to the question the member asked me yesterday about the calculation for the $420 million for the Fiona Stanley hospital. The calculation was arrived at by the Reid report and was relevant for the figures at the time. Obviously, inflation would need to be factored in. At that stage the hospital was proposed to be 84 000 square metres at a building cost of $5 000 per square metre, which adds up to $420 million. Of course, the final figure is likely to be different from the original estimate, pending further investigation of and discussion about services to be included in stage one and the possibility of the joint provision of services with other hospitals such as the St John of God hospital at Murdoch.
Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: I thank the member for some notice of the question, which I propose to answer briefly in three parts. The bed numbers outlined in the clinical services consultation report to which the member referred include all beds regardless of the type of bed. Internal reports often use different definitions depending on the purpose of the report. The most commonly used bed number in internal reports is the multiday active bed, which excludes beds that are temporarily closed for things such as renovations and also excludes beds that are solely for day-use only cases, such as chemotherapy, renal dialysis and some same-day surgery. Without knowing which internal report is being quoted, it is not possible to reconcile the differences. A winter plan has been prepared that will see the staged opening of beds across most of the hospitals in the metropolitan area to cope with the increased demand that occurs each winter, and I will provide more details of that later. The second part of the question referred to the elective surgery waiting lists. I am pleased to say that even though there has been a minor rise in the number of people awaiting surgery in the past two or three months, waiting lists for public hospital surgery has been cut by almost 6 000 patients since a record high in 1999 under the previous coalition government. The reduction of 6 000 patients on the waiting list has occurred at a time of ever-increasing demand by patients on the list for surgery, and it is directly the product of the additional money that we have put into specifically targeted elective surgery wait list reduction schemes. At the end of April, 16 120 people were waiting for elective surgery at public and privately managed public hospitals. The average waiting time was 4.77 months, or 143 days. This compares with January of last year when 18 745 people were waiting for elective surgery. That is a drop over that 16-month period of more than 2 620 patients. The government has spent nearly $1 billion on elective surgery in the past four years, and that accounts for 370 episodes of surgery in Western Australia. Although a variation of a couple of hundred in the past couple of months is cause for concern, and, as the member would know, unless this matter is tightly reined in and controlled, the waiting list will continue to blow out. We are determined to keep it down. I am sure that the commitment we made during the election campaign of an additional $10 million a year specifically to reduce the wait list will contribute to an ongoing reduction in the number of people awaiting elective surgery. The third matter I will deal with briefly relates to the question the member asked me yesterday about the calculation for the $420 million for the Fiona Stanley hospital. The calculation was arrived at by the Reid report and was relevant for the figures at the time. Obviously, inflation would need to be factored in. At that stage the hospital was proposed to be 84 000 square metres at a building cost of $5 000 per square metre, which adds up to $420 million. Of course, the final figure is likely to be different from the original estimate, pending further investigation of and discussion about services to be included in stage one and the possibility of the joint provision of services with other hospitals such as the St John of God hospital at Murdoch.
I thank the member for some notice of the question, which I propose to answer briefly in three parts. The bed numbers outlined in the clinical services consultation report to which the member referred include all beds regardless of the type of bed. Internal reports often use different definitions depending on the purpose of the report. The most commonly used bed number in internal reports is the multiday active bed, which excludes beds that are temporarily closed for things such as renovations and also excludes beds that are solely for day-use only cases, such as chemotherapy, renal dialysis and some same-day surgery. Without knowing which internal report is being quoted, it is not possible to reconcile the differences. A winter plan has been prepared that will see the staged opening of beds across most of the hospitals in the metropolitan area to cope with the increased demand that occurs each winter, and I will provide more details of that later. The second part of the question referred to the elective surgery waiting lists. I am pleased to say that even though there has been a minor rise in the number of people awaiting surgery in the past two or three months, waiting lists for public hospital surgery has been cut by almost 6 000 patients since a record high in 1999 under the previous coalition government. The reduction of 6 000 patients on the waiting list has occurred at a time of ever-increasing demand by patients on the list for surgery, and it is directly the product of the additional money that we have put into specifically targeted elective surgery wait list reduction schemes. At the end of April, 16 120 people were waiting for elective surgery at public and privately managed public hospitals. The average waiting time was 4.77 months, or 143 days. This compares with January of last year when 18 745 people were waiting for elective surgery. That is a drop over that 16-month period of more than 2 620 patients. The government has spent nearly $1 billion on elective surgery in the past four years, and that accounts for 370 episodes of surgery in Western Australia. Although a variation of a couple of hundred in the past couple of months is cause for concern, and, as the member would know, unless this matter is tightly reined in and controlled, the waiting list will continue to blow out. We are determined to keep it down. I am sure that the commitment we made during the election campaign of an additional $10 million a year specifically to reduce the wait list will contribute to an ongoing reduction in the number of people awaiting elective surgery. The third matter I will deal with briefly relates to the question the member asked me yesterday about the calculation for the $420 million for the Fiona Stanley hospital. The calculation was arrived at by the Reid report and was relevant for the figures at the time. Obviously, inflation would need to be factored in. At that stage the hospital was proposed to be 84 000 square metres at a building cost of $5 000 per square metre, which adds up to $420 million. Of course, the final figure is likely to be different from the original estimate, pending further investigation of and discussion about services to be included in stage one and the possibility of the joint provision of services with other hospitals such as the St John of God hospital at Murdoch.
The second part of the question referred to the elective surgery waiting lists. I am pleased to say that even though there has been a minor rise in the number of people awaiting surgery in the past two or three months, waiting lists for public hospital surgery has been cut by almost 6 000 patients since a record high in 1999 under the previous coalition government. The reduction of 6 000 patients on the waiting list has occurred at a time of ever-increasing demand by patients on the list for surgery, and it is directly the product of the additional money that we have put into specifically targeted elective surgery wait list reduction schemes. At the end of April, 16 120 people were waiting for elective surgery at public and privately managed public hospitals. The average waiting time was 4.77 months, or 143 days. This compares with January of last year when 18 745 people were waiting for elective surgery. That is a drop over that 16-month period of more than 2 620 patients. The government has spent nearly $1 billion on elective surgery in the past four years, and that accounts for 370 episodes of surgery in Western Australia. Although a variation of a couple of hundred in the past couple of months is cause for concern, and, as the member would know, unless this matter is tightly reined in and controlled, the waiting list will continue to blow out. We are determined to keep it down. I am sure that the commitment we made during the election campaign of an additional $10 million a year specifically to reduce the wait list will contribute to an ongoing reduction in the number of people awaiting elective surgery. The third matter I will deal with briefly relates to the question the member asked me yesterday about the calculation for the $420 million for the Fiona Stanley hospital. The calculation was arrived at by the Reid report and was relevant for the figures at the time. Obviously, inflation would need to be factored in. At that stage the hospital was proposed to be 84 000 square metres at a building cost of $5 000 per square metre, which adds up to $420 million. Of course, the final figure is likely to be different from the original estimate, pending further investigation of and discussion about services to be included in stage one and the possibility of the joint provision of services with other hospitals such as the St John of God hospital at Murdoch.
The third matter I will deal with briefly relates to the question the member asked me yesterday about the calculation for the $420 million for the Fiona Stanley hospital. The calculation was arrived at by the Reid report and was relevant for the figures at the time. Obviously, inflation would need to be factored in. At that stage the hospital was proposed to be 84 000 square metres at a building cost of $5 000 per square metre, which adds up to $420 million. Of course, the final figure is likely to be different from the original estimate, pending further investigation of and discussion about services to be included in stage one and the possibility of the joint provision of services with other hospitals such as the St John of God hospital at Murdoch.
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