Road trauma program at risk
An award-winning education program that shows schoolchildren and young offenders the results of road trauma in hospitals is at risk with the State Government yet to commit funds beyond next month.
Royal Perth Hospital was the first in Australia to import the highly successful prevent alcohol and risk-related trauma in youth (PARTY) program from Canada in 2006 and it has since been expanded to Bunbury, Denmark and Albany.
Successive WA Health and University of WA studies have found the program to be a cost effective way of “reducing violence or traffic related offences, injuries and death” in juvenile offenders.
Last year PARTY won the government department category at the Constable Care Child Safety Awards and a WA Injury Prevention and Safety excellence award.
Under the program, RPH opens its doors once a week to children in Years 10 to 12 and once a month to juvenile traffic offenders referred to it by the Children’s Court.
The teenagers go to the emergency department, intensive care unit and trauma wards where they talk to patients about their experiences and use wheelchairs and crutches to imagine life after a serious injury.
Though the Office of Road Safety provided $118,000 a year to run the program in regional WA, the $190,000 to run it at RPH is at risk.
RPH has committed to fund it until June 30 but not beyond.
A spokeswoman for the South Metropolitan Health Service, which includes RPH, said Federal activity-based funding was for medical and surgical activity in hospitals, not community programs.
She said PARTY received good feedback from teens and funding to continue it was being sought from WA Health.
A WA Health spokesman declined to answer whether the request would be met.
Health Minister Kim Hames told Parliament last month “external sponsorship”, including from ORS, was being sought.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare figures tabled in Parliament show WA spent $328 million treating road victims between 2006-07 and 2012-13, the most recent year for which figures were available, and the cost was rising. Treatment associated with road trauma cost $38.8 million in 2006-07 but rose to $50.6 million in 2012-13, when the average cost per patient was $9800.
Shadow health minister Roger Cook said it was extraordinary the Government had not guaranteed a program which drove down the road toll and could easily be funded from existing resources, including unspent money in the road trauma trust account.
“The Barnett Government simply must guarantee that the funding for this program continues,” he said.
