{"id":441813,"date":"2026-01-28T00:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T00:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/441813\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T00:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T00:50:09","slug":"first-older-adult-health-hub-opens-in-perth-to-provide-community-based-support-relieve-pressure-on-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/441813\/","title":{"rendered":"First older adult health hub opens in Perth to provide community-based support, relieve pressure on hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first of three health<\/a> hubs designed in part to help WA seniors stay out of the hospital system has started seeing patients ahead of its official opening in the coming months.<\/p>\n

An Older Adult Care Hub in Cockburn is now taking patient referrals from local GPs as part of its staged opening, which is set to be fully complete in the coming months.<\/p>\n

The Cook Government<\/a> envisions the hubs to help take pressure off the hospital system which routinely has hundreds of patients stuck in beds waiting for aged care places.<\/p>\n

The hubs were announced as an election commitment last year, and $24.3 million has been put towards the project.<\/p>\n

Each facility will have a range of services from physiotherapy, memory and cognition support, referral to rehabilitation pathways and assistance with navigating support services.<\/p>\n

Geriatrician Dr Andrew Wesseldine \u2014 who is overseeing the project \u2014 said the service could mean less people have to go in to hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cOlder adults frequently live with multiple chronic conditions and can develop over time associated functional decline requiring support for them and their families,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hubs provide connected, multidisciplinary care, supported by health navigators and shared clinical oversight, so services work together around the person.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Dr Wesseldine warned the services weren\u2019t intended to replace emergency departments for \u201cacutely ill people\u201d, rather better manage existing issues or identify new issues early.<\/p>\n

Health Minister Meredith Hammat said the hubs would take pressure off other sections of the healthcare system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese hubs represent an important shift in how care is delivered, and by investing in new ways to care for our older adults, we hope to improve how the broader healthcare system works for all Western Australians,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the very start of an exciting project. We will continue to evaluate how the hubs are operating and can better assist older people and their families to access the care they need when they need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Council of the Ageing WA chief executive Mark Kinsela \u2014 whose organisation will be helping create a model for social care and community services navigation \u2014 said the hubs were promising progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a step in the right direction to actually addressing this issue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s clear is that the hospital setting is not the best place for older people to be receiving these supports, the worst to have to make decisions about your housing and your care is in a hospital bed, when you\u2019re effectively in an emergency.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should be able to make those decisions when you\u2019re in a home supported by family members, supported by love ones so you can take time to really think it through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProjecting the services like a social worker, a gerontologist, an occupational therapist physio into the community where a person can access it in a more convenient way rather than in a crisis is a really good step.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first of three health hubs designed in part to help WA seniors stay out of the hospital…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500,44,84,1836,7239,45],"class_list":["post-441813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-public-health","tag-state-politics","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}