'Hospital homeless' clog beds
Hundreds of beds in WA hospitals are occupied by people who are medically ready to leave but have nowhere to go, costing taxpayers $30 million a year.
Health Department figures reveal that in the first six months last year 973 beds in Perth hospitals, which cost up to $1200 each a day on average, had patients waiting for aged-care places.
Seven young people with severe disabilities are "living" in hospitals for several months up to a year as they wait for accommodation despite being medically ready for discharge.
Health Minister Kim Hames said there was no doubt the Federal Government had to address aged-care accommodation needs in WA and the impact the shortage had on WA's health system.
From January to June last year, 973 patients who were ready for discharge stayed in Perth hospitals up to 108 days as they waited for aged care.
In the four months from June last year, 66 patients were in rural or remote WA hospitals waiting for aged care for an average of 33 days. The Health Department said there were now 70 patients waiting for an aged-care bed in metropolitan hospitals, down from 250 in 2001.
Last month a Senate inquiry in Perth was told about 520 younger West Australians with a disability - some as young as 18 - lived in aged care because of a shortage of dedicated housing.
Binu Joseph, the manager of St Jude's Hostel, which runs a psychiatric hostel and aged-care facility in Guildford, said it recently took a young person with severe disabilities and psychosocial issues who had lived in Royal Perth Hospital for 11 months and another young person, who was in hospital for eight months.
"It is important to note that these people, who are medically cleared but staying in hospital, are not only an unnecessary financial burden to the hospital but also taking the bed that someone really needs," he said.
Mr Joseph said the organisation spent $2 million buying homes in Midland to house at least 15 people with disabilities but the houses had been empty for 18 months because its tender to the Disability Services Commission to be a service provider was unsuccessful.
He said St Jude's, an approved State and Federal service provider, had lodged another tender with the DSC.
