A Shorten Labor Government will invest $52 million to upgrade and expand emergency departments and slash ED waiting times in Western Australia.

Thirty-six per cent of people who present to EDs in WA are not seen within clinically recommended times.

For urgent patients, that number rises to 50 per cent.

That will only get worse if Scott Morrison is re-elected on 18 May because he plans to cut $359 million from WA public hospitals over the next six years.

This is equivalent to:

• 89 beds a year for six years.
• 246 doctors a year for six years.
• 505 nurses a year for six years.
• 539,000 ED visits.
• 873,000 outpatient visits.
• 99,700 cataract extractions.
• 13,800 knee replacements.

 
Under Labor, WA hospitals will be an estimated $437 million better off.

That’s the combined total of WA’s share of our Better Hospitals Fund – which reverses the Liberal cuts of the next six years – our new investment in driving down ED waiting times, and our separate investment in cancer patient waiting times.

Labor has already committed approximately $130 million for hospital capital projects in WA including:

• Osborne Park palliative care $25 million.
• Bentley Hospital refurbishment $10.9 million.
• Royal Perth Hospital clinical command centre $15 million.
• Rockingham Hospital mental health emergency centre $5 million.
• Peel Health Campus - 10 bed AOD withdrawal unit $6 million.
• Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital - AOD urgent care clinic $4.15 million.
• Fremantle Urgent Care Clinic $5 million.
• Kalamunda Hospital redevelopment $7.6 million.
• Collie Hospital theatre upgrades $12.2 million.
• Laverton Hospital rebuild $12.8 million.
• Yanchep Health Centre $18.2 million.

In WA, a Shorten Labor Government will also link two regional hospitals to our National Telestroke Network, provide a new Camp Quality Liaison Officers, 10 specialist cancer nurses, four new Red Cross Milk Banks and two additional Medicare MRI licences.

Western Australia will also benefit from other elements of Labor’s $2.3 billion Medicare Cancer Plan, as well as our $2.4 billion Pensioner Dental Plan.