❓ A parliamentary question regarding the utilisation of the Armadale-Kelmscott Memorial Hospital emergency department expansion, with the minister defending the staged opening of beds and long-term planning.
AnsweredQoN 932Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
ARMADALE-KELMSCOTT MEMORIAL HOSPITAL — EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT EXPANSION
On 27 January this year the minister opened Labor’s $10 million expansion — Dr K.D. Hames : I have the date as the twenty-eighth. Ms A.J.G. MacTIERNAN : Okay, I shall start again. In January this year, the minister opened Labor’s $10 million expansion of the Armadale-Kelmscott Memorial Hospital emergency department, at which time he promised the facility would increase the number of treatment beds by 23. (1) Can the minister explain why half the new beds have never been used and why eight of the treatment bays are now being used as a storage room? (2) Can he explain why a further four beds are now closed due to staff shortages when ambulances are regularly being ramped and are often asked to bypass to Perth and Fremantle? (3) Does he acknowledge that this failure to utilise more than half the new emergency department facility is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and a fraud on the people of Armadale? Dr K.D. HAMES
On 27 January this year the minister opened Labor’s $10 million expansion — Dr K.D. Hames : I have the date as the twenty-eighth. Ms A.J.G. MacTIERNAN : Okay, I shall start again. In January this year, the minister opened Labor’s $10 million expansion of the Armadale-Kelmscott Memorial Hospital emergency department, at which time he promised the facility would increase the number of treatment beds by 23. (1) Can the minister explain why half the new beds have never been used and why eight of the treatment bays are now being used as a storage room? (2) Can he explain why a further four beds are now closed due to staff shortages when ambulances are regularly being ramped and are often asked to bypass to Perth and Fremantle? (3) Does he acknowledge that this failure to utilise more than half the new emergency department facility is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and a fraud on the people of Armadale? Dr K.D. HAMES
AnswerView source ↗
(1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
Dr K.D. Hames : I have the date as the twenty-eighth. Ms A.J.G. MacTIERNAN : Okay, I shall start again. In January this year, the minister opened Labor’s $10 million expansion of the Armadale-Kelmscott Memorial Hospital emergency department, at which time he promised the facility would increase the number of treatment beds by 23. (1) Can the minister explain why half the new beds have never been used and why eight of the treatment bays are now being used as a storage room? (2) Can he explain why a further four beds are now closed due to staff shortages when ambulances are regularly being ramped and are often asked to bypass to Perth and Fremantle? (3) Does he acknowledge that this failure to utilise more than half the new emergency department facility is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and a fraud on the people of Armadale? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
Ms A.J.G. MacTIERNAN : Okay, I shall start again. In January this year, the minister opened Labor’s $10 million expansion of the Armadale-Kelmscott Memorial Hospital emergency department, at which time he promised the facility would increase the number of treatment beds by 23. (1) Can the minister explain why half the new beds have never been used and why eight of the treatment bays are now being used as a storage room? (2) Can he explain why a further four beds are now closed due to staff shortages when ambulances are regularly being ramped and are often asked to bypass to Perth and Fremantle? (3) Does he acknowledge that this failure to utilise more than half the new emergency department facility is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and a fraud on the people of Armadale? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
(1) Can the minister explain why half the new beds have never been used and why eight of the treatment bays are now being used as a storage room? (2) Can he explain why a further four beds are now closed due to staff shortages when ambulances are regularly being ramped and are often asked to bypass to Perth and Fremantle? (3) Does he acknowledge that this failure to utilise more than half the new emergency department facility is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and a fraud on the people of Armadale? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
(2) Can he explain why a further four beds are now closed due to staff shortages when ambulances are regularly being ramped and are often asked to bypass to Perth and Fremantle? (3) Does he acknowledge that this failure to utilise more than half the new emergency department facility is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and a fraud on the people of Armadale? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
(3) Does he acknowledge that this failure to utilise more than half the new emergency department facility is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and a fraud on the people of Armadale? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
(1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
Dr K.D. Hames : I have the date as the twenty-eighth. Ms A.J.G. MacTIERNAN : Okay, I shall start again. In January this year, the minister opened Labor’s $10 million expansion of the Armadale-Kelmscott Memorial Hospital emergency department, at which time he promised the facility would increase the number of treatment beds by 23. (1) Can the minister explain why half the new beds have never been used and why eight of the treatment bays are now being used as a storage room? (2) Can he explain why a further four beds are now closed due to staff shortages when ambulances are regularly being ramped and are often asked to bypass to Perth and Fremantle? (3) Does he acknowledge that this failure to utilise more than half the new emergency department facility is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and a fraud on the people of Armadale? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
Ms A.J.G. MacTIERNAN : Okay, I shall start again. In January this year, the minister opened Labor’s $10 million expansion of the Armadale-Kelmscott Memorial Hospital emergency department, at which time he promised the facility would increase the number of treatment beds by 23. (1) Can the minister explain why half the new beds have never been used and why eight of the treatment bays are now being used as a storage room? (2) Can he explain why a further four beds are now closed due to staff shortages when ambulances are regularly being ramped and are often asked to bypass to Perth and Fremantle? (3) Does he acknowledge that this failure to utilise more than half the new emergency department facility is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and a fraud on the people of Armadale? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
(1) Can the minister explain why half the new beds have never been used and why eight of the treatment bays are now being used as a storage room? (2) Can he explain why a further four beds are now closed due to staff shortages when ambulances are regularly being ramped and are often asked to bypass to Perth and Fremantle? (3) Does he acknowledge that this failure to utilise more than half the new emergency department facility is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and a fraud on the people of Armadale? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
(2) Can he explain why a further four beds are now closed due to staff shortages when ambulances are regularly being ramped and are often asked to bypass to Perth and Fremantle? (3) Does he acknowledge that this failure to utilise more than half the new emergency department facility is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and a fraud on the people of Armadale? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
(3) Does he acknowledge that this failure to utilise more than half the new emergency department facility is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and a fraud on the people of Armadale? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
(1)-(3) I do not acknowledge any of those things. I have the original press release from Jim McGinty, who announced this development in January 2008. Of course, all developments are not developments of the Labor Party; they are developments of government strongly supported on both sides of this house with funding that is provided for facilities such as that. At the end of the day, taxpayers’ dollars pay for these things, not the Labor Party’s dollars. Nevertheless, that was a program we strongly supported and proceeded with. After coming to government, I was very pleased to be able to open that ward. The plan was always to build enough emergency department beds to cater for growth in demand up to 2020. It was always anticipated that not all those beds would be opened at once, but that there would be a staged opening of beds within that emergency department as demand required. Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
Ms A.J.G. MacTiernan : You bought beds to put them in storage. Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
Dr K.D. HAMES : That has occurred. Currently 30 beds are open and 17 are closed. As demand grows in that hospital we will progressively open them. The long-term plans for Armadale hospital include a significant upgrade to around 300 beds to make it a major secondary hospital on that site. In the meantime, the demand is not there. The hospital is managed extremely well and copes well with the demand. A lot of those patients are transferred to other hospitals because the standard of care at Armadale is not up to the standard of a tertiary hospital, where significantly higher standards of treatment are provided, so often patients are sent straight on. I do not know whether the figure is 80-odd patients a month or a year. I think it is a month; in fact, I think that more than 800 patients a year are sent from that hospital to Fremantle Hospital for more critical management in a tertiary hospital. What has occurred is exactly what was planned by the former Labor minister and exactly what he said would happen, and we are following the plan that was set in place.
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