❓ Ms. Beard questions the Minister for Health about a reported decline in remote nursing and midwifery FTEs since 2017, impacting regional healthcare, particularly for expectant mothers in Carnarvon. The Minister refutes the claim, citing outdated data and highlighting significant post-pandemic recovery and workforce increases.
AnsweredQoN 67Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
NURSES AND MIDWIVES — REGIONS
67. Ms M. BEARD to the Minister for Health:
I refer to the Report on
government services that highlights that the remote and very remote nursing
and midwifery workforce is now smaller at
949 full-time equivalents compared with when Labor came to power in 2017, when
there were 960 FTEs. Why has the
government allowed the nursing and midwifery workforce to fall to such a dangerously low level in the regions, to the point at which both staff and patient care,
particularly for expectant mothers in Carnarvon over the last two years, has
been compromised?
67. Ms M. BEARD to the Minister for Health:
I refer to the Report on
government services that highlights that the remote and very remote nursing
and midwifery workforce is now smaller at
949 full-time equivalents compared with when Labor came to power in 2017, when
there were 960 FTEs. Why has the
government allowed the nursing and midwifery workforce to fall to such a dangerously low level in the regions, to the point at which both staff and patient care,
particularly for expectant mothers in Carnarvon over the last two years, has
been compromised?
AnswerView source ↗
There are a couple of things. First
of all, I want to comment on the data from the Report on government services .
It is 18 months old. It is old data. It is historic data. For six months of
that data, we were very much well into the pandemic. The member needs to look
at the latest data. That report is based on 2021 and 2022 figures. Everyone will remember what happened in 2022 from about
January; in fact, the pandemic really started around the end of 2021 and
then exponentially hit Western Australia. It was an extremely challenging time
in the system; there is no question about that. But a lot has changed. What
really matters is not that the system was under strain during the pandemic,
because every single health system was under strain during the pandemic, but
the recovery that it makes post-pandemic.
We have seen an outstanding recovery
in our health system. We have seen a significant uplift in performance. We have seen a significant uplift in staff across
regional and metropolitan health services. It is the recovery that matters .
When they are hit hard, they are busy, and, yes, it hurts. It hurts the system
and the staff are busy. But what really matters is how they were able to come
through that, and they came through that due to a number of reasons. They came
through that because we have massively increased our staffing capacity across
the system. We have hugely increased our FTEs. I think around 4 000 FTE nurses,
1 600 FTE medical graduates and experienced doctors, and 1 700 allied health
FTEs have been created since we came to government. We have increased the
workforce by 30 per cent. We have increased
the workforce across the health system by 30 per cent since we came to
government . The 570 beds that we put on in 18 months is an increase of
900 staff alone, just with those beds.
The data is old. It is not relevant
now. The point is that we are actively investing in our health services, we are seriously lifting our FTEs and we are doing
the heavy lifting to make sure that communities have access to health services.
of all, I want to comment on the data from the Report on government services .
It is 18 months old. It is old data. It is historic data. For six months of
that data, we were very much well into the pandemic. The member needs to look
at the latest data. That report is based on 2021 and 2022 figures. Everyone will remember what happened in 2022 from about
January; in fact, the pandemic really started around the end of 2021 and
then exponentially hit Western Australia. It was an extremely challenging time
in the system; there is no question about that. But a lot has changed. What
really matters is not that the system was under strain during the pandemic,
because every single health system was under strain during the pandemic, but
the recovery that it makes post-pandemic.
We have seen an outstanding recovery
in our health system. We have seen a significant uplift in performance. We have seen a significant uplift in staff across
regional and metropolitan health services. It is the recovery that matters .
When they are hit hard, they are busy, and, yes, it hurts. It hurts the system
and the staff are busy. But what really matters is how they were able to come
through that, and they came through that due to a number of reasons. They came
through that because we have massively increased our staffing capacity across
the system. We have hugely increased our FTEs. I think around 4 000 FTE nurses,
1 600 FTE medical graduates and experienced doctors, and 1 700 allied health
FTEs have been created since we came to government. We have increased the
workforce by 30 per cent. We have increased
the workforce across the health system by 30 per cent since we came to
government . The 570 beds that we put on in 18 months is an increase of
900 staff alone, just with those beds.
The data is old. It is not relevant
now. The point is that we are actively investing in our health services, we are seriously lifting our FTEs and we are doing
the heavy lifting to make sure that communities have access to health services.
Explore WA Government Data
Search the full archive in the free dashboard, or query programmatically via API.
Explore more
Government Gazette
Appointments, regulatory notices, planning changes.
Hansard
Debates, questions, speeches and sentiment.
Tabled Papers
Reports and documents tabled in Parliament.
Committees
Committee profiles and recent reports.
Regulations
Subsidiary legislation with filters and summaries.
Bills
Proposed laws and parliamentary progress.
Acts
Current WA legislation and summaries.
Explanatory Memoranda
Bills with EMs (text/PDF) available.
Members
MP profiles, party breakdown and rankings.
Pollie Rankings
Data-driven rankings across 19 categories.
Amendment Chains
Track how schemes and regulations evolve over time.