❓ Question regarding wait times for mental health beds in Perth hospitals following media reports of emergency department overcrowding. The response provides data on wait times but disputes the premise of 20 patients waiting simultaneously and denies discharging patients without a mental health bed.
AnsweredQoN 3449Legislative Council
QuestionView source ↗
I refer to the situation raised in an ABC article on 23 July 2015 titled Mental health patients clogging Perth emergency departments due to 'complex case' , and I ask: (a) how long did it take to allocate a mental health bed to each of the 20 patients who were held in the Royal Perth and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospitals; and (b) were any patients discharged from the Royal Perth or Sir Charles Gairdner Hospitals before a mental health bed could be found for them?
AnswerView source ↗
Answered
25 November 2015
Responded by
Minister for Mental Health
Response time
43 days
(a) Refer to Attachment 1 for Royal Perth Hospital (RPH). [Please see tabled papers...]
Refer to Attachment 2 for Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (SCGH), period 14 July to 21 July 2015 [please see tabled papers...]. The measure used is Emergency Department Information System (EDIS) Length of Stay (LOS) (hours) between Bed Request to departure, where the departure was to a mental health bed.
Patients are constantly moving through the Emergency Departments. It is unlikely that there were 20 patients at any particular time waiting for admission to an authorised mental health bed.
(b) No.
Refer to Attachment 2 for Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (SCGH), period 14 July to 21 July 2015 [please see tabled papers...]. The measure used is Emergency Department Information System (EDIS) Length of Stay (LOS) (hours) between Bed Request to departure, where the departure was to a mental health bed.
Patients are constantly moving through the Emergency Departments. It is unlikely that there were 20 patients at any particular time waiting for admission to an authorised mental health bed.
(b) No.
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.