Investment in paramedics and hospital support staff key to reducing ramping this winter
United Workers Union says the State Government’s Winter Strategy includes important measures members have been calling for to reduce ramping and pressure across Western Australia’s hospitals, particularly investment in patient flow, workforce and care outside hospital settings.
United Workers Union WA Public Sector Coordinator Lisa Judge said the plan recognised that ramping required coordinated action across the whole health system, not just emergency departments.
“For example, UWU ambulance members’ strong advocacy for funding for Extended Care Paramedics has resulted in one of the smartest investments in this winter package. When a highly trained paramedic can assess and refer someone in their living room, that is a person who does not spend hours deteriorating in an emergency department corridor. It is better for patients and it takes real pressure off hospitals.”
“We have seen this program work. Keeping people safely at home where possible, particularly older Western Australians, is common-sense health policy and it is exactly the kind of reform frontline workers have been calling for.”
“Health workers across the system, including our members alongside doctors, nurses and public sector workers represented by the AMAWA, ANF and HSUWA, have been clear that addressing ramping requires action across patient flow, workforce and care outside hospital.”
Ms Judge said the announced increase in orderly and hospital support staffing was essential to improving patient flow and making additional beds usable.
“Boosting orderly and hospital support staff numbers is just as critical. Support staff are the engine room of a hospital. They clean beds, move patients, deliver equipment and meals, and without them nothing flows,” Ms Judge said.
“Workers have been telling us for years about the waste of having a patient waiting in ED for a bed that is empty but cannot be turned around for two hours because there are not enough cleaners and orderlies on shift. In winter, when support staff get sick like everyone else, those delays blow out quickly. Building real surge capacity is an essential step.”
“On any given day, staff know the system has effectively been short around 300 beds. Adding 200 and combining it with diversion measures is a sensible response to that reality. It responds to what workers experience every shift.”
Ms Judge said the Government’s focus on patient flow, workforce and supporting older people to safely leave hospital reflected priorities health workers and unions had been raising ahead of winter.
“Many of these measures reflect the practical solutions the joint health unions put forward in our five point plan released last year.”
“It is positive to see the Government respond to that detail. The test now will be whether there are enough staff on deck and properly supported to make this plan work where it matters, on the frontline.”
United Workers Union represents cleaners, orderlies, enrolled nurses, ambulance workers, paramedics, Patient Care Attendants, sterilisation technicians and countless other health workers who keep the system ticking. They are the hands on staff who get people to hospital, care for them once they arrive, and experience up close what happens when the system is under pressure.
ENDS
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