Western Australia's besieged health minister admits hospital staff are being stretched too thin and are at risk of burnout.
The public health system is under scrutiny after the death of a young girl forced to wait for care at Perth Children's Hospital.
Seven-year-old Aishwarya Aswath spent two hours waiting in the emergency department after presenting with a fever and being triaged in the second-least urgent category.
Aishwarya's parents had pleaded for her to be assessed by doctors after her eyes became cloudy and hands turned cold.
She died soon after she was finally seen.
It has since emerged four doctors in the hospital's emergency department were off sick that night.
Nurses raised concerns about understaffing months earlier and the government has come under fire for failing to act on warnings from the sector.
Health Minister Roger Cook has defended the hospital, describing it as world-class.
But he concedes doctors and nurses are being pushed to breaking point by long hours and high-stress situations.
"We understand it's tough out there at the moment in our hospitals," Mr Cook told reporters on Thursday.
"We understand staff are working incredibly hard on behalf of their patients and we want to do more, to make sure they have more resources and backing with extra colleagues."
Mr Cook said he would push for the state's $3.1 billion budget surplus to fund "sustainable" investment in the health system.
He said there had been a 10 per cent increase in emergency department presentations over the past six months.
The government plans to invest in more emergency beds and has launched a recruitment drive.
The Australian Nursing Federation has presented Mr Cook with a 10-point action plan for the Perth Children's Hospital emergency department.
Among the proposals are allocating one nurse for every three patients, rostering a standalone resuscitation team with a minimum of four nurses and keeping a short-stay surgical unit open 24/7 on weekends.
The union wants double the number of staff development nurses, a fast-tracking of recruitment and a "clearly articulated" and public strategy for managing beds during surge times.
The circumstances surrounding Aishwarya's death are being investigated by the Child and Adolescent Health Service.
Her death has also been referred to the coroner.
Mr Cook has come under pressure over record levels of ambulance ramping and treatment delays across Perth hospitals.
He insisted he was "energised" by what he described as an exciting time for the health system - a statement seized upon by Liberal health spokesperson Libby Mettam.
"It is not exciting for the staff who have to deal with it every day, for the patients who are on never ending waitlists, for parents whose children are ill or for the West Australian public watching this crisis unfold," she said.
