❓ Mr. Cook questions the Minister for Health about staff reductions at Fiona Stanley Hospital despite claims of high patient numbers. The Minister explains that initial staffing levels were for a surge and current patient acuity is lower, requiring budget adjustments.
AnsweredQoN 961Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
HEALTH
SERVICES DEMAND — STAFF
961. Mr R.H. COOK to the
Minister for Health:
I have a supplementary question. The minister said with
regard to Fiona Stanley Hospital that huge numbers of patients were ''voting
with their feet and going to the new hospital''. If that is the case,
why is the minister now sacking what the Premier has described as ''several
hundred staff'' that are there to treat those patients?
SERVICES DEMAND — STAFF
961. Mr R.H. COOK to the
Minister for Health:
I have a supplementary question. The minister said with
regard to Fiona Stanley Hospital that huge numbers of patients were ''voting
with their feet and going to the new hospital''. If that is the case,
why is the minister now sacking what the Premier has described as ''several
hundred staff'' that are there to treat those patients?
AnswerView source ↗
When Fiona Stanley Hospital was first established, a lot of
additional staff were employed to cover the huge surge in patients that we had
at the start. Those numbers have balanced out. We are still getting high
numbers, but a lot of them are lower acuity patients who take nowhere near as
much work. Again, the member should go and talk to David Mountain and he will
tell him all about it. He is the ED specialist and he knows how it works. He
has told me a million times to stop talking about numbers coming through the
door; it is the complexity that matters. The budgeted complexities for Fiona
Stanley are less than the total numbers we predicted for Fiona Stanley Hospital.
Mr R.H. Cook interjected.
Dr K.D. HAMES : The
member is getting back to that question that I have already answered. I cannot
say what number of staff that it will be. We know that they are over budget and
that they are well in excess of staff numbers, but they need to work out
division by division how they can save full-time equivalents by increasing
income, for example. They can offset needing to lose FTEs by increasing the
income that the hospital gets, and we are miles below what they get in other hospitals
around Australia. They can do a whole range of things—changing on-call
rates, changing overtime rates, changing a range of things—to make sure
that they can retain those FTEs. We will not know how many FTEs are lost; we
know the budget that they have to mitigate for.
additional staff were employed to cover the huge surge in patients that we had
at the start. Those numbers have balanced out. We are still getting high
numbers, but a lot of them are lower acuity patients who take nowhere near as
much work. Again, the member should go and talk to David Mountain and he will
tell him all about it. He is the ED specialist and he knows how it works. He
has told me a million times to stop talking about numbers coming through the
door; it is the complexity that matters. The budgeted complexities for Fiona
Stanley are less than the total numbers we predicted for Fiona Stanley Hospital.
Mr R.H. Cook interjected.
Dr K.D. HAMES : The
member is getting back to that question that I have already answered. I cannot
say what number of staff that it will be. We know that they are over budget and
that they are well in excess of staff numbers, but they need to work out
division by division how they can save full-time equivalents by increasing
income, for example. They can offset needing to lose FTEs by increasing the
income that the hospital gets, and we are miles below what they get in other hospitals
around Australia. They can do a whole range of things—changing on-call
rates, changing overtime rates, changing a range of things—to make sure
that they can retain those FTEs. We will not know how many FTEs are lost; we
know the budget that they have to mitigate for.
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