Budget puts health of WA's children on bypass

May 8, 2008

The AMA (WA) says the State Government should hang its head in shame for ignoring the future health of WA's children to satisfy the needs of football fans by funding a new sports stadium and other less vital projects.

"Today's State Budget callously puts the health of our future children on bypass by failing to provide for new, state-of-the-art women's and children's hospitals," said association President Prof Geoff Dobb.

"In the next 10 years, WA mothers will give birth to another 300,000 children who will need the support of major hospitals with the best staff and facilities money can buy – available 24 hours a day, seven days a week; many kids will have ongoing illnesses throughout their childhood.

"However, instead of meeting their needs the Government will shelve out $1.1 billion – double the cost of a children's hospital - for a new football stadium catering for 60,000 spectators who will probably use it about 20 times a year.

"It's an outrageous decision which defies logic."

Prof Dobb said the Government's huge cash surplus should have enabled it to finally meets its commitments to the 2004 Reid Report which recommended co-locating PMH and King Edward Memorial Hospital on the same site.

"Infrastructure at both hospitals is collapsing rapidly and impacting on patients and staff," he said.

Prof Dobb said the AMA welcomed the Government's attempt to address workforce shortages which could enable the opening of more hospital beds to ease the pressure on emergency departments and lead to a reduction in the elective surgery wait list.

"We also recognise that the Government has allocated additional funding for mental health services which is sorely needed," he said.

"However, at the same time there is nothing new in the budget which addresses Aboriginal health, the growing crisis in rural areas or comes to the aid of the under-funded Royal Flying Doctor Service."

Prof Dobb said that the community and the medical profession would be greatly disappointed by the Budget, which failed yet again to meet the Government's election promise seven years ago to "fix" health.

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