2 months ago
24
When asked why last year he stridently defended the state’s hospital maintenance program, Carey said he accepted the findings of the audit.
“I take them seriously. I know there is a big job ahead, and I’m committed to reform of procurement,” he said.
Carey said the government’s response to the report would include bringing in the Department of Housing and Works into the fold to accelerate procurement processes.
It would also establish a specific health-related trades panel to make maintenance easier and establish KPIs and clear expectations for maintenance activities across hospitals.
He also committed to providing further transparency of maintenance expenditure in future state budgets.
Health service providers have been at the centre of a number of high-profile corruption probes, including an August 2018 investigation which found bribery in procurement went undetected within the maintenance and contract division of the North Metropolitan Health Service for nearly 10 years.
When asked about corruption risk by loosening procurement processes, Carey said there was a balance to be struck.
“It is a considered approach. It is a fine balance. But we asked for an independent review. This was an independent review that did us that it did a system-wide audit,” he said.
“There will still be significant checks and balances in place via the system manager, which is the Department of Health.”
In August last year a $50 million Health Asset Maintenance Fund was established to undertake a maintenance blitz at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Royal Perth Hospital and the Armadale Health Service.
Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.Credit: Getty Images
Just $6 million in works have been completed across Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and Royal Perth Hospital so far, while a further $14 million has already been committed for works in progress.
Department of Health Director General Shirley Bowen conceded she may have needed to do more to raise the maintenance issues with the WA Government.
“We actively have raised that we have work that needs to be done,” she said.
When asked by a reporter that whatever she did raise with the government wasn’t working, she said: “Perhaps it wasn’t”.
Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas said if he were Carey he would be embarrassed today.
“These failings shape home to him. He can’t say I’ve been in the job five minutes. He’s had carriage of this portfolio for the entirety of this current term of Parliament. So this is on him,” he said.
“I’d be especially embarrassed if I was the premier, and particularly embarrassed if I were Amber-Jade Sanderson. They had carriage of the health portfolio for four years, and then another four years into this term of Parliament.
“What we’ve seen here is systemic failure to act. There’s been no planning, there’s been no forethought.”
Australian Medical Association WA president Dr Kyle Hoath said the audit was a “we told you so moment”.
“No one wants to be that told you so guy but I feel like we say the same thing over and over and over again, and we hear world class, and we hear dodging this, and we hear there are no problems. There’s nothing to see here,” he said.
“So it was kind of validating today to actually see that these problems are real, these problems in our health system, they are there. It’s not a world class health system.”
