If we get hit with a big Delta outbreak in Western Australia you are going to pretty smart to stay as healthy & uninjured as possible. Late August and 8000+ cases in Australia and only 3 in WA. If we get an outbreak anytime soon even at the lower end like Victoria (250+) we will be in real trouble.
The Health Budget in real terms has been reduced & suppressed. Its grossly under staffed, under resourced and borderline broken.
Code Yellows in WA Hospitals are so common they're rarely reported anymore.
Ramping has gone from an unacceptable 1200 month hours to a regular 4000-5000 month hours & yet the Minister said it isn't a crisis, its a challenge. No it's borderline broken with many health workers regularly putting in 16-18 hour shifts. I did meet a doctor in emergency who was on 21 hours & about to clock off.
It is so bad, regional hospital have now had ramping.
Children have been turned away from hospital. Mothers on the edge of birthing turned away from hospitals.
This is it, you are looking at the perfect storm that through inaction & denial was been in the making for 4 + years. If we have a big outbreak I'm sadly think hospitals will collapse and people (due to no fault of health workers) will unnecessarily die in very large numbers.
With a huge boom in the resources industries, why be a nurse? Valuable staff have left, are working reasonable hours for better pay. Nurses are in numbers that are as depleted as their bodies & spirits are.
Remember McGowan & Cook were of the view that the pressure that hospitals were under was due to "extra cleaning" due to COVID & a rise in mental health based presentations & this was common to every state. I think budget reductions in real terms instead of a 5% regular rise each year was a mistake.
MAKE NO MISTAKE, WE ARE NO PAYING DEARLY FOR HEALTH PORTFOLIO MISMANAGEMENT. ONE SERIOUS OUTBREAK IN WA, THE MORGUES WILL BE FULL
And back in March 2021 from the ABC, emphasis added by me...
"To have two hospitals tip into code yellow on a single day was unusual and is a sign of a system under pressure," Health Minister Roger Cook said.
In addition, ambulances were arriving with more patients needing urgent care.
A third major hospital, Fiona Stanley, was also extremely busy, Mr Cook said.
But he also described the code yellow alerts as "business as usual" and a sign the system was responding to the pressures it faced.
(Image by courtesy of The West Australian)
No comments:
Post a Comment