Elective surgeries may be put on hold statewide as hospitals across WA buckle under the pressure.

Non-urgent category three and semi-urgent category two elective surgeries may be delayed to help reduces the stress currently on the state’s emergency departments.

Premier Mark McGowan announced at a press conference today that the state is struggling to handle the pressure.

“We’re going to do what we have to do to deal with that,” he said. “It’s a case by case basis and it will depend upon what we can do and when we can do it.”

Australian Medical Association WA Vice-President, Dr David McCoubrie, welcomes the idea, but says the issue is not something to swept under the rug.

“Outside of COVID, this is a fairly unprecedented move to centrally suspend elective surgery,” Dr McCoubrie told Oliver Peterson. “The waitlists are going to blow out, but I guess this is a recognition that we’ve got a crisis.”

The current cue for elective surgery is around 30,000 people.

“We’ve seen massive increases. We’ve had nine of the top 10 records of ambulance ramping in the last nine months consecutively. The deep concern for staff is that this is only just the start of winter and respiratory viruses haven’t really started having their peak affect,” Dr McCoubrie said.

The appropriate waiting time for category one surgery us up to 15 days, category two is 45 days and category three is 120 days.

Click here to hear the full interview.