Western Australia has the lowest ratio of public hospital beds in the country, despite having two years to prepare for COVID and a record budget surplus.
The Australian Medical Association released the figures along with its annual performance report, highlighting a steady, nationwide decline in hospital beds relative to Australia's ageing population.
The AMA's 2022 Public Hospital Report Card shows bed availability per 1,000 people aged over 65 has shrunk by more than half during the past 28 years.
As Western Australia sits at the crest of its Omicron wave, the state has just 2.24 beds per 1,000 people compared to the national average of 2.47.
WA lost 3.8 beds per 1000 people between 2018-19 and 2019-2020, the biggest drop in the country over that period.
AMA President Dr Omar Khorshid said the data was a broad indicator of whether a person would receive timely care at a hospital.
"We expect that by 2035, more than one million will be older than 85 – almost double of what it is today," he said.
"Our public hospital capacity must be expanded to meet the demands of a population that is increasing in size, age and suffering from multiple chronic health issues."
Nationally, more than one in three people waited longer than the clinically recommended 30 minutes to receive urgent care.
In WA, 43 per cent were seen within the recommended time frame, a drop of nine per cent from the year before.
Dr Khorshid criticised the state government's spruiking of record spending on the health system.
"Are they keeping up with demand? I think the numbers show very clearly in this report that they are not," he said.
"Western Australia, despite a $5 billion dollar projected budget surplus, and being the only state that could really spend a whole lot of money right now on health, continues to lag where it should be leading."
ED wait times best in the country
The WA government highlighted the state was the best performer in the country when it came to the number of emergency department visits completed in four hours or less, at 71 per cent.
"WA has the highest spending per capita of any state on public hospitals," a government spokesperson said.
The government has continually stated WA's health system has coped with the ongoing COVID outbreak, especially in light of lower than expected ICU admissions.
While the AMA agreed the state had provided adequate care for COVID patients, Dr Khorshid said there were not enough resources being dedicated to other areas of the health system.
"The extra capacity that's been put aside for COVID has resulted in many, many West Australians being unable to access elective surgery in the public sector, and also in the private sector," he said.
Call for end to blanket freeze on surgery
Dr Khorshid said Western Australia's blanket rule to freeze some non-urgent elective surgeries was an example of government mismanagement, as not all hospitals required the same capacity to deal with COVID.
"Making it statewide means we've got empty beds," he said.
He said rules stopping new bookings for non-urgent elective surgeries should be decided by hospitals rather than the government.
The report card showed the median wait time for elective surgeries in WA had increased by 10 days from the previous year, with most people waiting up to 46 days.
However, the wait time in WA was better than the national average.
Nationally, one in three patients waited longer than the clinically recommended 90 days for Category 2 elective surgery, which includes conditions such as heart valve replacements or craniotomy for an unruptured brain aneurysm.
The decline in performance was worse with Category 3 elective surgery wait times, with one in five waiting more than a year for a hip replacement.
