The Department of Health has announced that the first 26 of the new 36 beds at Royal Perth Hospital have been opened.
The initiative is part of 117 beds to be opened across Western Australia in the coming months.
The Royal Perth Hospital beds are both medical (22) and surgical beds (14) and will make a significant contribution to patients requiring hospital care.
They will create at least 60 new jobs for nurses.
The Department said this followed the opening of 24 new beds at Fremantle Hospital. Of these beds, 14 were geriatric, six general medicine and four general surgical.
“These beds will help relieve pressure on Fiona Stanley Hospital and consolidate Fremantle Hospital as a leading provider of same-day surgery, aged care and mental health services,” it said.
Minister for Health, Roger Cook said the Government had already announced the recruitment of 600 newly-qualified nurses over two years to address the demand on the hospital system.
“My recent meetings with the State Health Ministers showed that pressure on hospital emergency departments is not just a WA issue, it is a shared national problem,” Mr Cook said.
“All States are dealing with unprecedented demand on their health systems and we are investing immediately in new beds to deal with this demand.”
He said the additional beds would help ensure patients continued to be triaged efficiently and those that most required care could be admitted to hospitals in the safest, most timely manner.
“These new beds will help ease the pressure on our emergency departments and support the ongoing delivery of high-quality care for patients across the Perth metropolitan area,” Mr Cook said.
