Push for more heart beds
Doctors are worried there will not be enough beds at Fiona Stanley Hospital, with concerns raised in internal documents about heart and lung patients.
The Australian Medical Association and shadow health minister Roger Cook said it was becoming apparent that, like the new children's hospital, the 643-bed Murdoch hospital was designed on outdated estimates of patient demand.
Fiona Stanley Hospital will house WA's main cardiothoracic unit, doing all transplant and bypass surgery and treating patients with heart or lung failure.
But cardiothoracic specialists from Royal Perth and Fremantle hospitals claim in internal documents that the 13 inpatient beds planned for their patients are inadequate and need to be boosted to 24.
They also have concerns about the number of cardiothoracic beds across the city falling from 42 to 38 and fear extra beds planned for Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital will not eventuate.
The documents, obtained by Mr Cook through Freedom of Information laws, also reveal existing long waiting times for heart patients needing post-surgery check-ups and those needing angiograms so they can be assessed for treatment.
Dr David Russell-Weisz, who heads the hospital project, said bed numbers for individual specialties were still being worked out and should be decided soon.
Based on predicted activity, he expected the number of cardiothoracic beds would be between 20 and 24, but denied there was a bunfight for beds among the specialties.
Mr Cook said the Government failed to develop hospital services to meet the needs of the growing population.
"They failed on the new children's hospital which will be overcrowded the day it opens and now the important cardiothoracic services could be also be constricted at Fiona Stanley Hospital," he said.
AMA WA president Richard Choong said he sympathised with the push for more cardiothoracic beds but all specialties were under the pump.
"If you add beds to one area, they have to come from somewhere else," he said.
