Roger Cook has presided over the worst month of ramping in two years according to data from St John WA and cited by Libby Mettam, WA Liberal Leader.

The July figures are the worst for ambulance ramping in Western Australia since August 2022.

“Ambulance ramping is completely out of control under Roger Cook,” Ms Mettam said.

“Every hour an ambulance sits on a ramp is an hour the patient inside is not receiving hospital care and an hour the ambulance can’t help other patients.

“Roger Cook has been in the health portfolio and then Premier almost continuously since 2008 – this is a crisis entirely of his making.

“Roger Cook and his Health Minister are totally out of their depth, leaving WA’s health system in crisis.”

Despite the Premier’s claim ambulance ramping is trending down, it has risen six months in a row and is worse than at any point in 2023. At the same time, response times have improved, indicating the issue lays with the Roger Cook’s management of the Department of Health, not with St John WA.

“Roger Cook said 1,000 hours of ramping was a crisis, but WA has now lived through more than 50 months in a row with more than 1,000 hours of ramping.

“Roger Cook and his Minister are not up to the job of running WA’s health system.

“WA is living in an era of out-of-control ramping, exhausted and overworked healthcare professionals, unprecedented elective surgery and specialist waitlists, and unacceptable patient deaths, because of this Labor Government’s inaction.

“Roger Cook says he is proud of his record in health but after overseeing crisis after crisis in health, there is nothing to be proud of.”