The WA branch of the Australian Medical Association has slammed the state government for considering scaling down COVID protocols at hospitals, as the number of people hospitalised with the virus hits a record high of 351, with 17 in intensive care.
Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson has flagged the possibility of reducing COVID-19 testing at hospitals in a bid to move people through emergency departments more efficiently.
"To ease pressure on our hospitals and staff, we are actively considering a safe scale down of the System Alert and Response (SAR) red processes that have been in place at hospitals since March," she said.
"The Chief Health Officer is of the view that some of the current infection control and testing protocols at hospitals may soon no longer be necessary and we expect to make an announcement regarding the SAR red protocols imminently.
"Infection control processes remain important to keeping patients and staff safe, but we also need to assist our healthcare workers to safely and quickly process patients through the emergency department."
It is understood the changes would include removing the need for all hospital patients to undergo rapid antigen tests, instead only requiring testing for those who have symptoms.
'This is a terribly bad plan': AMA
The President of AMA WA, Dr Mark Duncan-Smith, said it was a terrible idea.
"I've spoken to two emergency department doctors today, both have said that this is a terribly bad plan at this point in time," he said.
"Making it easier for COVID to spread in emergency waiting rooms will not change ramping.
"This move will make emergency department waiting rooms super spreader events that will make it easier for COVID to spread through the hospitals, it will make it easier for visitors to spread COVID to patients."
A week ago, there were 252 COVID-related hospitalisations, meaning there has been an increase of almost 100 extra people in hospital with the virus in just seven days.
The record high comes as the state reported 6,473 new infections and a total of 35,815 active cases.
With the number of infections, deaths and hospitalisations growing across the country, Dr Duncan-Smith said the WA Government should be beefing up COVID safety protocols, not relaxing them.
"With 351 patients in hospital now we need to introduce restrictions in the form of mask-wearing to try and reduce the numbers," he said.
"Anything we do today will not have an effect for two to three weeks, so we will see inpatients go up even further.
"I expect at this stage we'll be getting … possibly even to somewhere between 400 and 500.
"Now that is one tertiary hospital taken out of our system, we only have four and we've already seen in the past that we don't even cope with four tertiary hospitals."
'Encouraging' masks not enough
At the moment, mask-wearing in WA only remains mandatory in health and aged care settings and when using public transport and ride-sharing services.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said national cabinet had decided on consistent health messaging around face masks based on recommendations from health authorities.
"These include wearing masks indoors where appropriate, where people are mixing and can't have social distancing, it makes sense for that to be highly encouraged," he said.
Dr Duncan-Smith said encouragement alone was not enough.
"Encouraging people to wear masks is where we are right now with 351 patients in hospital in Western Australia," he said.
"We have encouraged voluntary mask-wearing, that is clearly not enough."
The state's latest COVID figures also include three deaths, dating back to July 8.
