The new 307-bed hospital opened seven months ago and has already had its funding for this financial year boosted by 12 per cent to cope with increased demand.
The State Government revealed last week some non-urgent elective surgeries at the hospital had been rescheduled due to funding constraints.
Director-General of Health, David Russell-Weisz, said the hospital activity had been broadly in line with the forecast increase of 45 per cent above that of the old Swan District Hospital.
But there were some areas where St John of God reported that demand had spiked.
“They flagged very late that there were some issues in relation to specific areas that were much higher than expected,” Dr Russell-Weisz said.
“Now, we are working through that while the financial year is finished, the close out doesn’t happen until this week and we’ve had a commitment to them to work through any specific issues.”
Overall demand ‘around what was expected’
Health Minister John Day has met St John of God Health Care to discuss the issue of increased patient numbers and its impact on the hospital budget.
Since opening in November last year, the hospital has treated 37,000 patients in its emergency department and completed more than 3,700 elective surgeries.
Dr Russell-Weisz said that was largely expected.
“The emergency department demand is around what we expected overall,” Dr Russell-Weisz said.
“There has been more demand in some areas such as mental health, there’s less demand in other areas.”
The Health Department is currently assessing the higher-than-expected areas of demand to determine if St John of God required additional top-up funding.
Dr Russell-Weisz said the Department expected public-private partnership operators like St John of God to remain within budget.
“But where we do have years where there can be something extraordinary, out of the blue, that couldn’t have been predicted then there are mechanisms where the Department of Health could fund them for that extra activity,” he said.
He said he expected the issues to be resolved by the end of the month.
By Andrew O’Connor