WA has recorded its fifth-worst month on record for ambulance ramping, as the state's health system braces for a worse-than-usual flu season.
Figures for May, published by St John Ambulance, show paramedics spent a total of 5,252.6 hours ramped outside hospitals.
It is the highest total recorded for the month of May in history and brings the total number of ramped hours so far this year to more than 24,000 – equivalent to more than 1,000 days.
Opposition health spokesperson Libby Mettam said those numbers were worrying.
"This is our worst start to winter on record and is obviously very concerning ahead of what is predicted to be a severe flu season," she said.
Ramping worst at Joondalup hospital
Ambulances are meant to be able to transfer patients to the care of a hospital within 30 minutes. If they have to wait longer than that, it is known as ramping.
It generally occurs when a hospital does not have enough capacity to take in additional patients.
Averaged across the month, the figures mean ambulances spent an average of 169 hours each day during May waiting outside emergency departments.
Crews taking patients to Joondalup Health Campus were left waiting the longest – a total of 1,021.9 hours – followed closely by Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital with 995.7 hours.
Bunbury was the busiest for country hospitals, with 68.2 hours.
"It impacts not only patient care, but also it has a flow-on effect with ambulance response times, given that they are taken away from their job of delivering patients," Ms Mettam said.
St John Ambulance aims for ambulances to respond to the most serious calls within 15 minutes at least 90 per cent of the time.
But the organisation fell significantly short during May, reaching that benchmark only 75 per cent of the time.
That is up slightly from March, when the target was met only 70 per cent of the time.
Figures defy massive budget surplus
Ms Mettam said with the government sitting on a $5.7 billion budget surplus, those numbers weren't good enough.
"It's extraordinary to hear the Premier boast about a $5.7 billion surplus when the lack of investment in our health system over a number of years is resulting in such dire consequences," she said.
"These hours represent patients waiting with ambulances outside of hospitals, waiting for patients to be accepted because of a lack of capacity in our health system."
Ms Mettam also criticised the government for failing to have a "sense of urgency" in addressing issues in the health system, drawing on comments from early May that a suite of measures wouldn't see changes for a number of months.
But Premier Mark McGowan continued to say the government was doing everything it could to relieve pressure on the struggling health system, and also cited continuing high furlough numbers.
"It's just a perfect storm and it's hard to deal with it," he said.
"But we're doing innovative and new things, we've got fire officers driving ambulances, we've got recruitment campaigns interstate and around the world to get more people into hospitals.
"We're opening new beds, we're doing everything we can to try and deal with the situation we face."
