Doctors in Western Australia are demanding to know when the WA government will provide 50 new emergency department staff, saying it is long overdue and not even approaching what is needed.
"At least 50" full-time equivalent emergency staff have been promised as part of a $100 million commitment towards emergency departments (EDs).
It falls within a larger $1.9 billion spend on health set to appear in September's 2021/22 State Budget.
Dr Peter Allely from the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine said while more funding was welcome, it was possibly too little, too late considering how many EDs there were across the state.
"I suspect that's going to amount to a very small number in each individual department and unfortunately it will not have a whole lot of impact," Dr Allely said.
"We need them yesterday."
Dr Allely also wanted to know how the staff would be distributed across the hospitals.
WA Health Minister Roger Cook could not give a time for when the new emergency department staff — which included medical, nursing and allied health professionals — would start.
"Well, this is part of the budget process, so we'll get on with that recruitment process now," he said.
"It may vary between the EDs, but there'll certainly be funding this financial year to get those staff on the ground."
There was also money in the plan for new mental health emergency centres in Rockingham and Armadale, plus extra staff to monitor waiting areas at Perth Children's Hospital's emergency department.
Hospital staff stress levels 'horrific'
Dr Allely said the demand on emergency departments in recent years had taken a toll on staff.
"A lot of my colleagues and staff are just reporting burnout and exhaustion.
"There's a lot of people cutting back their hours, there's a lot of people looking for alternate employment who absolutely love emergency medicine and working in the emergency departments but are just being gradually destroyed by the toxic work environment.
"We cannot deliver the level of care that we want to our patients because of problems beyond our control."
On Sunday, the government announced it would fund 100 new doctors and nearly 500 new nurses to staff 332 extra beds, most of which were expected to be available by March, with about half of those beds previously announced.
Dr Allely said more beds were well overdue.
He also said recruiting new hospital staff would take months because of COVID outbreaks and travel restrictions both in Australia and overseas.
The strain on WA's public hospital system has been in the spotlight for months with ambulance ramping reaching a record 5,200 hours in June.
The WA government said COVID-19 had placed "unprecedented" demand on the state's public health system, but Dr Allely said the demand had been "growing very predictably over the last 15 to 20 years."
"If you'd sat down in 2017 and predicted where emergency department numbers would be in 2021, we're pretty much right on the money," he said.
"We know that it goes up two-to-four per cent every year."
New RPH emergency department
As part of the money for emergency departments, Mr Cook said $3.6 million would allow for the planning of a new ED at Royal Perth Hospital (RPH).
"We'll be looking for a new site I think," Mr Cook said.
"The current positioning of the ED at the moment is really just too constrained."
Mr Cook said the government needed to continue to invest in RPH because it was an older hospital, but again gave no timeline for the redevelopment.
He said the government was in discussions with senior hospital staff about what the specific needs are.
"Dr Allely said plans for fixing RPH were well overdue, but "fantastic".
WA Health data showed 99 per cent of triage 1 (resuscitation) patients at RPH were seen within the recommended time in June, but the numbers were not as good for other categories.
Around two-thirds of triage 2 (emergency) patients were seen within the recommended time that month, while about 16 per cent of triage 3 (urgent) patients were seen within the ideal 30 minutes.
Last year, the ABC revealed the state government was toying with the idea of demolishing RPH and replacing it with a new facility, a project estimated to cost $2 billion.
A spokesperson for the government said given the allocated money is for planning, it cannot say for certain what the future of RPH will look like.
