RAMPING SURGE EXPOSES LABOR’S DECADE OF HEALTH NEGLECT

Ambulance ramping has surged to its highest level of 2026, with ambulances spending 6603 hours outside WA hospitals in August waiting to transfer sick and injured patients into overcrowded emergency departments.

It is the first month this year that ramping has exceeded 6,000 hours and the worst month since September 2025, when a record of 7,267 hours were recorded.

August’s figure is also 11 per cent higher than the 5,924 hours recorded in July and a 24 per cent increase on June, the start of winter.

The alarming result comes despite WA recording more than 60 per cent fewer influenza cases than at the same time last year, when the State endured three consecutive months of ramping over 7,000.

Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas said the figures exposed the serious consequences of almost a decade of the Labor Government’s neglect and poor planning.

“Labor has had nearly ten years to build the hospital capacity Western Australia needs, and it has failed,” he said.

“Our population has grown, demand has increased and our hospitals have been allowed to fall further and further behind.

“The Australian Medical Association has warned Perth is effectively one hospital short of where it needs to be. That capacity shortfall did not appear overnight - it is the direct result of years of Labor failing to plan and invest early enough.

“Labor is now scrambling to announce major hospital projects, but much of that capacity is still years away.  

“The health of West Australians cannot be treated as an announcement or a headline. Patients and our healthcare workers need additional capacity now.” Shadow Health Minister Libby Mettam said the latest figures stripped away the Government’s excuses for the continuing crisis.

“WA has recorded more than 60 per cent fewer flu cases than at the same point last year, yet ambulance ramping has again surged above 6,000 hours,” she said.

“Labor can no longer blame seasonal pressures for a crisis that has become entrenched under its watch.

“More than one in ten patients are spending longer than 12 hours in emergency departments waiting for admission or discharge, while semi-urgent patients are regularly facing waits of 10 hours or more.

“Behind every one of these figures is a sick or injured patient waiting in pain, a paramedic stuck outside a hospital instead of responding to the next emergency, and exhausted doctors and nurses trying to provide care in an overcrowded system.

“After three consecutive months above 7,000 hours of ramping last year, Labor knew exactly how serious this crisis had become.

“Yet its winter strategy contains no numerical target to reduce ramping, no benchmark for improvement and no timeframe for when West Australians can expect things to get better.

“Labor can boast about record spending and turn as many sods as it likes, but after almost a decade in government, the condition of WA’s health system is the measure that matters.”

Media contact: Graham Mason 0419 194 792