Visiting Karratha this week, I saw first-hand the reality of the Cook Government’s indifference to health care in regional WA.

It looks like a grieving mother, a desperate parent trying to get medical attention for a toddler or a pregnant woman who has to travel 600km away from home to give birth.

It looks like Kristie Grabenhofer.

Kristie’s 21-year-old son Machlan Felix took his own life after repeated efforts to get help for his mental health issues failed.

Having dealt with mental illness variously in her own life, Kristie knows the difference appropriate care can make.

She said a six-week rotation of visiting psychiatrists meant Machlan did not get the continuity of care he needed and found himself continually having to re-establish a doctor-patient relationship.

Karratha has been waiting for a Step-Up Step-Down mental health facility since it was funded by the Barnett Liberal government in 2015, but it is clear there is a strong need for a permanent psychiatrist based locally.

Roger Cook’s Health Minister, Amber-Jade Sanderson, said people who need help with mental health problems could visit the emergency department at Karratha Hospital.

The reality is that almost 50 per cent of people who go to the emergency department at Karratha Hospital wait for more than six hours for a bed — far from an ideal outcome for people with mental health issues severe enough to present to an ED. Karratha has seen a 20 per cent increase in crime over the last year, rents have gone up by 120 per cent, and it is battling chronic underfunding and under resourcing in its health system, while it is the most resource-rich region in Australia.

Karratha is the gateway to the Pilbara which earns more export dollars for the State and nation than any other single region.

Despite this, the Cook Government has failed to invest enough to ensure locals to get access to essential medical services.

In 2022, the Pilbara region contributed $8.72 billion in State royalties. Less than 0.01 per cent of that was spent in the region by the Cook Labor Government.

Despite contributing more than 75 per cent of the value of the State’s exports, ageing and inadequate health infrastructure and shrinking medical services remain a fact of life for West Australians living in the regions after more broken promises by Roger Cook and his minister.

The Shire of Ashburton got so desperate for the primary hospital in Tom Price worth less than $33 million they were promised — which Rio Tinto had even agreed to fund part of — that they were forced to launch a campaign in Perth to remind the Government of that commitment.

Another broken promise from WA Labor.

Only $77,000 of about $33 million for the Tom Price Hospital has been funded.

Meekatharra Hospital received just $1.5 million in the last State Budget, a tiny fraction of the funding required for the upgrades it desperately needs.

Carnarvon will continue without maternity services and Paraburdoo Hospital will get none of its much-needed upgrades after both projects received no allocation in the State Budget.

And pity the poor people of Geraldton whose new hospital redevelopment, promised by Labor in 2017, is still on the drawing board and takes on the dubious mantle of the State’s most delayed infrastructure project. West Australians in Geraldton, Tom Price, Meekatharra, Carnarvon aren’t asking for Fiona Stanley-style tertiary hospitals.

All they’re asking for is a health service that meets the needs of their community

But they’re not getting it — and that’s part of the reason they’re dying earlier than their urban cousins.

In 2018, males living in very remote areas had a mortality rate 1.5 times as high as those living in major cities, and females living in very remote areas had a mortality rate 1.7 times as high.

We have no chance of bridging that gap while the Government refuses to stump up for basic regional health care but continues writing blank cheques for transport projects in Perth.

Its no wonder people in regional WA get angry when they see Metronet blow out by another $2 billion (in a single year), while they’re forced to drive days to get medical care for their kids, and they can’t even get funding for staff at nursing posts.

The WA economy is built on the contribution of our mining industry, and the towns which support them.

In addition to iron ore, the abundance of the critical minerals in the north of our State represents a significant opportunity — if effectively harnessed — for the future prosperity of WA.

Many of those elements are critical in the supply chain that will feed the world’s transition to clean energy; go into the defence technologies which keep Australia safe; and, ironically, are essential in the medical technologies regional West Australians can’t access.

WA’s regional towns will also be essential for our State’s ongoing prosperity.

Residents in Tom Price, Meekatharra, and Carnarvon aren’t being unreasonable.

They live in Australia’s wealthiest State, in the regions where that wealth is created.

Tom Price hospital is now a dilapidated 60-year-old hospital no longer fit for purpose.

Roger Cook wouldn’t let his local hospital fall into such a state, and if it is not good enough for his own constituents, it shouldn’t be good enough for any West Australian.

West Australians deserve access to health care in modern facilities wherever they live.

Metronet is sucking up all the attention and money of a Government that can’t walk and chew gum, with West Australians’ health paying the price.

As my colleague Mem Beard says, Metronet might save time, but regional hospitals save lives.