Creating more hospital beds and boosting immunisation will be key features of a $140 million “winter strategy” aimed at avoiding a repeat of WA’s worst-ever flu season.
Premier Roger Cook said the funding would strengthen resilience across the state’s besieged health system and reduce pressure on emergency departments, which are among the most stretched in the nation.
Mr Cook said authorities were eager to prevent a repeat of the 2025 winter, which he described as “one of the toughest on record”, with 30,000 influenza cases making it the worst-ever flu season in WA.
The severe flu season was partly blamed for ambulance ramping and elective surgery delays, which have dogged the government in recent years.
Increasing capacity
WA Health Minister Meredith Hammat said the $140 million spend was on top of existing hospital funding and would include $61 million to increase the number of hospital beds across the state.
Meredith Hammat says the government has invested $140 million on top of existing hospital funding. (ABC News: Keane Bourke)
Ms Hammat said the extra bed capacity would be achieved by allowing private beds to be contracted by the government during periods of “extreme demand”.
Almost 200 beds will also become available at St John of God Mt Lawley Hospital, which will become a public hospital on August 31, as the government finalises its purchase of the facility.
She said beds at the hospital would also be made available to public patients in the interim.
The WA government has almost finalised the purchase of St John of God Mt Lawley Hospital. (ABC News: West Matteeussen)
Ms Hammat said $24.5 million would be committed to the national Time To Think program, which aimed to reduce the number of older patients who remained in hospital despite being medically discharged.
WA records worst-ever flu season amid poor vaccination rates
“We know the number of older West Australians who have been cleared for discharge but remain in hospital because they can’t access appropriate care continues to grow,” she said.
There was also a commitment of $20 million to pilot a new service to provide 24/7 monitoring for elderly patients.
This would include oversight by clinical and medical staff to look for ways to provide support in settings outside of hospital.
Overflow ward likened to ‘dungeon’
Katrina Carnicelli supported any move to boost the number of beds in hospitals after she said her mother Jill was forced to spend two “scary” days alongside drug-affected patients in an overflow ward at Royal Perth Hospital that nurses referred to as “the dungeon”.
Katrina’s mother Jill spent two days in an overflow ward at Royal Perth Hospital after a scan revealed she had a brain tumour. (ABC News: Courtney Withers)
She said her mother was experiencing double vision, memory loss, had stopped eating and was shaky on her feet after a scan found she had a brain tumour.
Despite this, Ms Carnicelli said they had to wait for a neurology bed to become available at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, where she was finally admitted last night.
“I was ringing private hospitals, neurosurgeons. There were no beds anywhere … we were stuck,” she said.
Ms Hammat said she would look into the case, and had not heard the dungeon reference before.
“I’m very sorry to hear of the circumstances that you referred to, and we have asked for some more information to understand exactly those circumstances,” she said.
Shadow Health Minister Libby Mettam described the case as “completely unacceptable” and said the state government was “playing catch up” after underinvesting in the health system.
Shadow Health Minister Libby Mettam says the government is playing a desperate game of catch up. (ABC News: Courtney Withers)
“We support any new resourcing in our hospital system but we are hearing more of the same when it comes to [hospitals] facing capacity issues,” Ms Mettam said.
“WA is the wealthiest state in the nation, this shouldn’t be happening.”
Boosting vaccination
Low vaccination rates in WA were also blamed for the state’s horror 2025 flu season.
Off the back of last week’s announcement to provide free respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines to aged care patients, $14 million was also set aside as part of the winter strategy to improve vaccine uptake across the state.
This would include funding for targeted immunisations for vulnerable groups and providing the flu mist vaccine for children aged two to 11.
The strategy will include targeted immunisation porgrams. (ABC News: Michael Lloyd)
Premier Roger Cook said the winter strategy was designed to “strengthen resilience across the health system” to avoid last year’s chaos.
“Illnesses such as RSV and influenza have a real impact on West Australians and it directly affects availability of hospital beds,” he said.
Australian Medical Association WA president Kyle Hoath welcomed the winter strategy announcement but warned there was still more work to be done.
Dr Hoath said the plan should mean WA fared better than last year but said Australia could potentially be in for a shock after “a pretty brutal winter” in the northern hemisphere.
He said getting people out of hospital and into aged care could be a decider in how the winter period impacted hospitals across the state.