Roger Cook ‘confident’ Ministers can rein in a hospital maintenance crisis as health remains big priority

Roger Cook has insisted the buck still stops with him but refused to explain why he didn’t front up when the damning results of a report into hospital maintenance were revealed. The Opposition has dubbed the Premier “good news Roger” on social media, after he was notably missing from Thursday’s press conference to release an independent report that partly blamed “resourcing constraints” for delays to hospital repairs. Instead, Health Infrastructure Minister John Carey declared the “buck stops with me” when he announced an overhaul of maintenance procurement. But in April, after a cabinet reshuffle split the health portfolio between multiple ministers, the Premier indicated he was ultimately responsible, when asked who the “buck” stops with. On Friday, Mr Cook said that was still the case. “I have been very clear - as Premier, the buck ultimately stops with me,” Mr Cook said. “I am proud to lead a team of experienced ministers who work hard every day to deliver on my government’s priorities for WA. “Health is one of our biggest priorities and that’s why I appointed a dedicated Health Infrastructure Minister so that system-wide changes could be identified, prioritised and implemented. I have every confidence this will be done.” Mr Cook didn’t respond to questions about his whereabouts on Thursday. Mr Carey fronted the media for a fourth straight day on Friday, but baulked when asked if the Government would commit to more funding or staff to fix the state of hospital disrepair, revealed by The West Australian in August. “Look, that’s for the budget process,” Mr Carey said. “I do want to bust this myth that seemed to occur in the press conference yesterday, we are already making substantial investments in maintenance. “In 2025 we provided $260 million, we expect a similar amount in this financial year. “And, of course, in addition to that, we allocated a $50m blitz that we’re working hard to get out the door.” The Australian Medical Association has warned that it would take “years, not months or weeks” to raise hospital maintenance standards, as a result of procurement processes that the report found were largely reactive. AMA WA president Kyle Hoath said the Government has at last owned up to the problem and now needed to get on with dealing with it. “There’s going to have to be adequate investment to make sure this happens,” he said. “I’m not an economist. I don’t know what these things cost but that $50m is going to disappear very quickly when you start looking at whole of system changes.” The $50m maintenance “blitz” was announced in August, in the wake of The West Australian’s ‘Hospital Of Horrors’ investigation that revealed hundreds of leaks and mould being reported by staff at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. Only $6m worth of work has since been completed, with a further $14m allocated to upcoming repairs. The interim report, released on Thursday, by former Health Department boss Neale Fong and former under-treasurer Michael Barnes cost taxpayers more than $400,000. It found maintenance funding was “predominantly reactive” with limited oversight, had no dedicated funding for ageing assets, and confirmed that the situation had resulted in a growing backlog. Long procurement processes contributed to delays, even for minor repairs, and extended approval timeframes were partly blamed on “resourcing constraints”. The Government’s action plan in response to the recommendations of the “frank and fearless” review aims to complete the rest of the blitz by September. But Mr Carey said he could not guarantee the timeline would be met. “I’ve learned in politics (not to give) guarantees like that, you know, when you’re dealing with complexities,” Mr Carey said. “It’s 24/7 in the hospital system. We’ve had to do some of this work outside peak hours or on weekends and again, some of these projects are complex. “I do want to be clear on this. We are working very hard to get the money out the door.” He said the Department of Housing and Works, for which he is also Minister, was providing assistance to the Health Department, which has final spending oversight. WA Health director-general Shirley Bowen said on Thursday that the report’s findings were “expected” and were an “excellent roadmap” for the future. She denied more staff were needed in the chief procurement office, where the review blamed “resourcing constraints” for extended time frames in 30 per cent of cases. “That office perhaps needs a different way of approaching their work,” Dr Bowen said on Thursday. Mr Carey said cutting red tape and reducing the number of approvals required before maintenance work could go ahead should speed up the process. “We’re talking about a bottleneck,” he said. “Too many approvals were being required by that office. So through our changes and through the reforms that we’re adopting, I’m actually confident that there will be less demand on that office.”