Premier Mark McGowan insists Western Australia's hospitals are ready for the state's hard borders coming down amid dire ambulance ramping figures.
St John Ambulance figures reveal ramping - where patients are forced to wait in ambulances for more than 30 minutes before being handed over to emergency departments - increased across the metropolitan system to a record 3290 hours last month.
It comes despite WA having low coronavirus case numbers and barely any flu cases.
Prior to last month, the previous high was 2746 hours in June 2019, during a record flu season.
Mr McGowan has attributed the alarming figures to additional "streaming" measures put in place across hospitals to isolate patients with respiratory issues.
He says the government has employed additional liaison officers to work in hospitals.
"The hospitals are ensuring they put people into these separate streams, so that is the issue that is occurring," he said on Monday.
"This has been an unexpected issue as a consequence of COVID that we are now doing our best to manage using these new measures."
Australian Medical Association WA president Andrew Miller said it wasn't good enough and hospitals weren't prepared for the worst.
"We have no flu. We have no COVID. We're doing a normal amount of elective work," he said.
"How can it be that they've managed this system into the ground?"
WA will reopen its borders to all states and territories from November 14, although some restrictions will remain for people from NSW and Victoria.
Opposition health spokesman Zak Kirkup said the health system was at "crisis point".
"We're now two weeks away from our borders coming down ... I don't think anyone would have confidence in the government's handling of our health system given that ambulance ramping is now spiralling out of control," he said.
Mr McGowan insisted hospitals were well-prepared for any potential outbreaks.
"We've done all the preparatory work, we've done all the work with the staff to ensure that we're able to cope ... obviously there's a backlog there as well that we're still dealing with," he said.
"We're doing the best we can in a difficult environment."
While WA still has a two square metre rule in place for indoor venues, there is no longer a requirement for patrons to register their attendance.
Mr McGowan said with the borders coming down, the government would consider requiring people to scan in on QR codes at venues.
"That's something we're going to liaise with industry about," he said.
"Obviously the world is rife with COVID. Making sure we are properly prepared for any issues is very important."
WA Health reported one new case on Monday - a man in his 20s who returned from overseas and is in hotel quarantine.
The state has 39 active cases.
