The Independent Review into the nursing system in WA should be a wake-up call to the McGowan Government.
This review provides valuable feedback from some of our health workers at a time when the McGowan Government have silenced health workers with the suspension of the “Your Voice in Health Survey”.
This report by Professor Phillip Della backs up what the Opposition have been saying for some time and that the McGowan Government have under resourced and mismanaged the health system.
“The McGowan Government must rethink their current reckless approach and properly resource our public hospital system,” said Shadow Health Minister Libby Mettam.
“Concerns raised about missed care, increased clinical error, increased patient falls and time to prepare patients for discharge, point to a health system which continues to lurch from crisis to crisis.
“The report highlights that over 75% of nurses said their wards did not regularly have enough staff to provide safe and quality patient care and more than a quarter said they would quit in the next 12 months.
“This points to a system at crisis point – with morale all time low and staffing at dangerous levels.
“This is simply another damning report which points to health workers who are overworked and operating under dangerous conditions in the WA Public Health system.
“The McGowan Governments decision to reinstate the “Your Voice in Health Survey” next year is another disgraceful move by the McGowan Government to silence feedback from health workers during what has
been another challenging year under the McGowan Government.
“Clearly the Government have been dragged into it by outcry from doctors, nurses and health staff angered by Government’s arrogant move to silence them during the pandemic.
“We welcome the fact the Government has been forced into bringing the survey back, but it raises the
question, why isn’t the survey being done now?
“It was a disgraceful move to stop this survey in the first place.
“Despite the spin, there is no doubt government’s move was about managing their media PR on the health crisis and they did not want to have health staff able to paint the full picture.
“Now they have been forced into reinstating the survey which should never have been stopped in the
first place.”
