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The opposition has left the door open to scrapping the Cook government’s plan to build the new women’s and babies’ hospital in Murdoch if successful at the 2025 election.
Pressure has ramped up this week over the government’s shock April decision to abandon plans to build the $1.8 billion hospital in Nedlands.
WA Liberals leader Libby Mettam and Premier Roger Cook.Credit: Trevor Collens
A leaked draft report from within the Child and Adolescent Health Service warned the Murdoch site would result in more death and disability in vulnerable babies.
On Thursday another document was leaked to the media, this time it was a letter signed by more than 50 King Edward Memorial Hospital clinical staff addressed to WA Health Director General David Russell-Weisz.
The staff reinforced the concerns in the CAHS paper and warned the government’s planned upgrades at Osborne Park Hospital were not enough to meet the needs of mothers in the northern suburbs if the new hospital was built south of Perth in Murdoch.
Opposition health spokeswoman Libby Mettam implored the government to reverse its “reckless” decision.
When asked whether she would respect or tear up any contracts signed to build the new hospital in Murdoch if she won the election in March 2025 she said she would take the advice of clinicians.
“We will take into account the best clinical advice and so far what we have heard is red flags and alarms sounded by our top clinicians. That advice cannot be ignored,” she said.
“We will continue to campaign against this reckless decision.
“We will be announcing our policies in the lead-up to the next election, but we are currently campaigning for the Cook Labor government to reverse this dangerous decision right now.”
In a fiery parliamentary question time, WA Premier Roger Cook accused the opposition of wanting to cancel the women’s and babies’ hospital.
“We will make sure that this mob do not cancel the construction of the new women’s and babies hospital,” he said.
Cook again defended the decision to move the hospital to Murdoch which would see it built and open by 2029.
The government decided to move the hospital after an Infrastructure WA review of the project business case identified nearly two decades of delays and flagged major disruption to the Queen Elizabeth II medical precinct in Nedlands.
Later Mettam asked Cook whether he would take responsibility for the death and disability of babies and mothers if the government pushed ahead with its Murdoch plan. The question incensed the premier.
“That is perhaps one of the most distasteful questions that I think has ever been brought to this place,” he said.
Cook then asked Mettam whether she would accept responsibility for the disruption of patients at the Nedlands site if it proceeded with the original plan and the poor clinical outcomes of patients continuing to use King Edward Memorial Hospital while the new hospital was being built.
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