It is doubful if hapless and hopeless Health Minister Jim McGinty will deliver on his 2006 promise to relocate PMH. PMH is badly run down and Health Minister McGinty has failed to properly provide for Western Australia's major Children's Hospital despite massive increases in funding for health.
McGinty's "vision" for PMH received much fanfare but nothing, as usual, has happened. Staff have been left up in the air - their expectations dashed. The commitment was all talk; undeliverable by this incompetent Minister, who has got poor value from the massive health dollars he has been given.
Fiona Stanley Hospital, his flagship, hasn't been started and the cost has blown out from $451 million to $1760 million. No wonder with McGinty's incompetence there is no money for PMH.
Recent publicity about PMH having to send a child east for routine heart surgery is not the first scandal. Children have been sent east on many other occasions for the treatment they should get in booming Western Australia. There is a lack of theatre space at PMH, a shortage of theatre staff and a lack of beds.
McGinty has failed to allow for the 20% growth in the birth rate which is putting extra pressure on PMH. PMH has not been funded for the increase in demand and cannot cope.
The number of theatres needs to be expanded from five to seven - it has the same number of theatres as in 1985 and the intensive care unit is inadequate.
If there is a flu epidemic this winter it could well tip PMH over the edge. McGinty's negligence will then be exposed.
Many staff leave PMH because of a lack of on-site parking and the difficulty finding parking in nearby areas and having to walk long distances to their car. Many women on shift work have to expose themselves to danger late at night. Parking will worsen when the new football statium construction begins. It is a shambles.
Recently more car park spaces were lost because of more ad hoc additions. McGinty still hasn't produced his promised vision for the replacement of PMH which is too cramped. Many staff are accommodated in buildings off-site requiring them to walk back an forth to the hospital for consultations and patient visits. McGinty's silence is deafening when there is bad news around.
As well as cardiac services operating in an outdated model, infection control standards are known to be inadequate. There is inadequate room for staff in which to work.
When these criticisms are raised in the media, what do we get from McGinty - silence. McGinty should stop hiding like a wimp and explain his agenda for PMH to the public. Some of us suspect he is too preoccupied by the internal politics of the Labor Party where the main distractions are dishing the out patronage and securing influential positions and intimidating and destroying other members of other ALP factions that get in the way.
Politics has become a game. Power becomes an end in itself, not a means to building a stronger society - especially for our sick and disadvantaged children.
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