Doctors warn hospitals are stretched to the limit even before the border reopening on February 5.
Premier Mark McGowan has expressed confidence the extra $3.2 billion being pumped into the state health system will help Western Australia ride out an expected spike in COVID-19 cases following its reopening, despite ongoing warnings hospitals and health workers are already stretched to the limit.
But Peter Allely, chairman of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine’s WA faculty, said doctors were nervous about COVID-19’s arrival in the state, with hospitals having “no surge capacity to cope with a weekend, let alone for the virus, and staffing remained a critical issue”. Pointing the finger at both Liberal and Labor governments, he said the state’s hospital system had been “systematically underfunded for decades”.
WA recorded three local COVID-19 cases on Monday, but all had been announced on Sunday along with the masks mandate to “stop the spread” of omicron just weeks out fromMr McGowan said the $3.2 billion – announced in December’s mid-year review – marked the state’s “highest-ever increase to health funding” and the government’s management of the pandemic “speaks for itself”, with just 12 days of lockdown since mid-2020 and the strongest state economy.
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