WA’s peak medical body has called for a major rethink on the proposed Women and Babies Hospital, saying it needs to be co-located with adult and children’s hospitals.
WA’s peak medical body has called for a major rethink on the proposed Women and Babies Hospital, saying it needs to be co-located with adult and children’s hospitals.
The AMA (WA) said it was “location agnostic” but has laid down criteria that effectively rules out the proposed site at Murdoch.
Specifically, it has called for the tri-location of Adult, Paediatric and Obstetric and Neonatal hospitals at a suitable location in metropolitan Perth.
“Three hospitals must be located within immediate proximity to one another, on one site,” AMA (WA) president Michael Page said.
This would ensure the sickest patients can receive timely, life-saving care.
The original plan, to build the new Women and Babies Hospital at the QEII medical centre in Nedlands, alongside Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and Perth Children’s Hospital, would have met this criteria.
If the government presses ahead with its current plan, it would need to build a new children’s hospital at Murdoch in order to meet the AMA’s criteria.
The AMA said Western Australia was the only state in Australia not to have these services co-located.
It noted that no consultation with clinical or consumer groups occurred before the April announcement abandoning the QEII plan.
“This was regarded as extremely disrespectful to the many committed consumers and healthcare workers who had worked tirelessly on the project to date, and most importantly to the patients of WA, whose best interests must be at the centre of these decisions,” it said.
It has called for “immediate, ongoing, meaningful engagement” with all key stakeholders.
The association said the location of the new hospital appeared to have become an infrastructure decision, rather than a healthcare decision.
The state government was unmoved by the AMA’s call.
A spokesperson for health minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said the government had “irrefutable evidence that it would be irresponsible” to proceed with the new $1.8 billion hospital at the QEII site.
“Pushing ahead with the QEII medical centre site would have resulted in at least ten years of unacceptable disruptions for patients and staff at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and Perth Children’s Hospital, and as a government we must consider the needs of all patients,” the spokesperson said.
The government has selected a new location, currently used as a car park, at the southern end of Fiona Stanley Hospital.
“We did this to ensure that the new hospital would be co-located with a tertiary hospital, which already aids thousands of births each and every year, and to support this decision we are consulting with clinicians about what services for women and their babies will look like in the future,” the spokesperson said.
WA Liberal Leader Libby Mettam called on the government to immediately reverse its decision to relocate the new hospital to Murdoch.
“Premier Cook and Health Minister Sanderson’s obstinate refusal to listen to world-leading medical advice on the best location for the hospital is arrogant and risks the lives and futures of critically ill babies in this state,” Ms Mettam said.
“To hear the AMA say today that not one clinician or medical consumer group was involved in the decision to change the location to Murdoch is actually very frightening.
“That this government would, in five minutes, without consultation, overturn a decade of research that unanimously found the QEII site to be the optimum location shows a complete disregard for the best interests of Western Australians.
“The government’s ongoing refusal to release the business case which it says supports the move to Murdoch is also somewhat suspicious - what does the government not want us to know?”
Ms Mettam also questioned the government’s use of a “$16,500 back-of-an-envelope feasibility study” to justify its decision.
Business News revealed this month that the government has spent just $16,500 on a feasibility analysis to support shifting to the Murdoch location.
We have also reported on a spate of new contracts awarded this month to engineering and consulting firms, including Stantec, BG&E and Emerge Associates, to conduct early-stage planning for the new site.
The government has awarded four more contracts in the past fortnight, with Silver Thomas Hanley signing a $270,000 contract for architectural services.
Aurecon has signed two contracts worth $170,000, including for traffic engineering, while Adept Health Projects has a $145,000 contract.