Extra Storey at New Perth Children's Hospital Scrapped

The Australian Medical Association has criticised the WA State Government's decision to rule out adding a new storey to the new Perth Children's Hospital.

Not adding the extra storey will save $70 million and the hospital's design has been reconfigured to add an extra 24 bed surgical ward at a cost of $38 million.

The Health Minister Kim Hames says he is confident the 298-bed facility will  meet future demand. He conceded the loss of WA's AAA credit rating played a part in the decision not to build the extra floor.

"With the tight financial circumstance it just wasn't justified putting that $70 million for a 'just in case for the future' when we do have the opportunity for a future government to expand this hospital already built into the design," he said.

"It became clear in the last year, particularly in the last six months, that the capacity of this hospital in terms of the numbers of beds was not going to be adequate," he said.

The Australian Medical Association's Mike Gannon has urged the Government to change its mind.

"This is a sad day for the health of Western Australians, it's a sad day for our kids, it's a sad day for our families," he said. "This was a once in a generation opportunity to get it right; you can't just put an extra floor on a hospital later. "Now is the time to put the two extra floors, now is the time to find 100 beds, now is the time to do something really special that will last this city and this state 50 years."

But, the president of Paediatric and Child Health at the Royal Australian College of Physicians, Gervase Chaney, has welcomed the extra beds.

"This is plenty of beds for us in the future," he said. "It gives us just under 300 beds in the new children's hospital, significantly more than we've got now. "It allows us flexibility in what we can do with those beds.

"The special new ward will be a surgical short-stay ward which will allow us to improve our surgical flow and open other beds that would have been used for other uses like oncology and other areas."

Dr Hames says the extra beds are included in a wider program to boost the number of paediatric beds across the metropolitan area.

"The new Fiona Stanley Hospital will have 29 paediatric beds and a dedicated paediatric ED, while Midland Public Hospital will have 12 paediatric beds," he said.

"PCH, Fiona Stanley Hospital, Midland Public Hospital and expansion at existing hospitals will take the total capacity to just over 400 paediatric beds. The very latest modelling predicts that we will need 399 beds for 2021."

Dr Hames said the paediatric beds in other metropolitan hospitals would provide care for less complex medical cases.

"The critical issue is that parents are still nervous about going to our secondary hospitals because as yet we don't have the demand there and don't have the capacity and specialists to provide that very high level of care," he said.

"So we will be not only providing those extra specialists at the hospitals but we will be getting the doctors that are currently at Princess Margaret, that will be here at the new Perth Children's Hospital, doing outreach services to those peripheral hospitals to make sure they get the absolute first class care that is needed.

"We don't want someone who lives miles north of Joondalup having to trek all the way to Princess Margaret Hospital for treatment. "We need to grow the capacity of those peripheral hospitals as well as the beds. "Our challenge is to make sure people are confident going to those other hospitals."

The Premier, Colin Barnett, also announced the new facility will be called the Perth Children's Hospital, reverting to its original name from 1909. It was renamed Princess Margaret Hospital in 1949.

"This is a new hospital for a new generation and it is part of promoting Perth as a major centre for medical health and medical research," he said. "It will be one of the great children's hospitals in the southern hemisphere and will take child health to absolutely leading status both in treatment and research."