By Charlene Gatt
STATE Health Minister David Davis has slammed the former Labor Government for failing to properly fund the health care sector – but still can’t detail how he will bring Western Hospital up to scratch.
In week eight of Star’s Help Our Hospital campaign to get much-needed funding for Western Hospital, we asked Mr Davis what his plans were to get first-class facilities for the hospital in the coming decade.
A spokesperson for the Minister would only say that the Baillieu Government “has committed to comprehensive planning for Victoria’s health system and has delivered on its commitment to develop a Metropolitan Health Plan which was released in May”.
“A Capital and Resources Plan will be delivered later this year and future planning and investment in health services will be guided by these plans.
“Over the past 11 years the former Labor Government failed to properly plan for the growth and ageing of the population which has impacted on growth areas such as western metropolitan Melbourne.”
The hospital will receive $1 million to expand its short-stay unit as part of the National Health Reform Agreement that the State Government re-negotiated earlier this year.
But it’s a small piece of the funding pie for a hospital that is groaning under the pressure of a growing population, chronic illness in the West and ageing facilities.
The hospital has 325 overnight beds – the same amount it had in the 2006-07 financial year.
Between July 2010 and May 2011, Western Hospital had 32, 561 emergency department presentations and 21,535 same-day admissions, while the 2009-10 annual report shows the hospital ranked under the benchmark for the Victorian Patient Satisfaction Monitor.
Meanwhile, Western Hospital’s emergency department spent 3.2 per cent of the 2009-10 financial year on bypass, because it was filled to capacity and could not safely accommodate and treat more patients.
A total 90 patients spent more than 24 hours in the emergency department and 50 per cent of emergency patients had to wait up to eight hours for a bed.
Mr Davis’s spokesperson would not answer whether Mr Davis supports fellow Liberal MP Bernie Finn’s plan to draw up a priority list of works for Footscray’s Western Hospital to give doctors, nurses and patients first-class medical facilities.
