Australian Medical Association WA president and orthopaedic surgeon Omar Khorshid said hospital staff grappled with trying to get patients through the system quickly. “At one hospital I work at, it is full every day and we get warnings by email every day that the hospital is full and that just creates a certain amount of pressure,” Dr Khorshid said. “We know as clinicians we need to get patients out as quickly as we can to get the next one in.” Dr Khorshid said widespread cost cutting had led to low staff morale. “We’ve seen substantial job losses across hospitals in allied health, in management, a little bit in the medical and nursing areas,” he said. Health Minister Roger Cook said WA could not afford health spending to grow on its current “unsustainable” trajectory. He believes WA is in a better position to rein in spending growth in the wake of activity-based funding. “We have a much better line of sight in terms of where those big cost centres are,” Mr Cook said. “I think you’ll see over the next few years, we start to get that expense growth much better managed.” But Dr Khorshid believes many of the issues affecting the health system will take 10 to 15 years to address.
