Thread by @Cormac_McCafe

i think what gets lost in a lot of the East Coast media's discussion of WA's COVID approach is how bad/fragile WA's medical infrastructure is after the Barnett Government bungled it via a series of very public rorts

ambulance ramping is so bad in WA rn, our hospitals are incredibly short on beds, and the constant brain drain has left a lot of facilities short staffed--never mind the sectors dependance on foreign workers to make the hospitals run, so to speak

a close friend who works as a doctor was telling me that everyone is working around 30% more hours than they usually would, all unpaid, all burnt out, all stressed.

McGowan inherited a crippled system from Barnett, but proceeded to sit on his hands and ignore/mismanage the problems that health care professionals of all stripes have been complaining about since the beginning of the boom. like all things WA the question is where is the money?

one of the most immediate instance of policy to real life effect i've ever witnessed was when the Barnett government shut down Freo hospital's emergency room, and 2/3rds of the hospital itself, turning it into a low functioning hospice/giant skeleton in the middle of town

about 4 months ago my mum intercepted a distressed man who was driving his v sick son to the Fremantle emergency room. he had no idea it'd been shut down 7 (i think) years ago. he didn't know his only option was Fiona Stanley, a 20 minute drive away, 15 in good traffic.

Fiona Stanley was opened by Barnett as a state of the art hospital that was set to service the southern suburbs (aka the poor side of the river). Problem is the southern suburbs in Perth cover an insane amount of land and what's a 10 minute drive for some is 45 mins for others

and the state of the art hospital didn't amend the biggest problem facing perth's hospitals since the population boom in the 90s: there's not enough beds. Now it is especially dire. we effectively havent had COVID since April 2020 but the hospital system is still f*cked

this is to say nothing of our regional health care. Perth has the 3rd largest suburban sprawl on EARTH (behind LA and Tokyo). the state is just too big, and people are incredibly isolated. again, this is the direct result of government cuts and policy

during the boom, infinite satellite suburbs were stitched together until they overtook what was bushland/country WA. what we didn't build was infrastructure was hospitals and public transport to meet these new mega suburbs' needs.

the stranglehold Roads WA has over successive WA governments means we are a state of highways and little else. a lot of these highways, even the 'newer' ones, weren't designed to cope with a giant population spike, giant SUVs, and giant mining vehicle caravans

so the act of just getting to the hospital in a hurry if you live somewhere like, idk, Kenwick, is a nightmare. people can't afford the 1k ambulance ride, and there's little an ambulance can do in gridlock traffic, which now goes for 3 hours each morning and evening

what i'm saying is decades of poor planning have left the state incredibly fragile. our entire existence is predicated on a communal lie: that we have what we need if things get bad. but we don't. if COVID spread here we'd be absolutely buggered, no doubt about it.

i'm no fan of the hard border and think McGowan is being way too strict w individual cases but he's in an impossible position. he knows what most people don't: even a small outbreak would be a disaster for every hospital from Perth to Geraldton.

i hate how the media has memory holed the Barnett government. they ran the boom years like robber barons, filling their pockets while picking the state clean. all they built were hospitals that were too small (and badly located) and a pier that everyone hates

you can't help but ask where did all that trillions of dollars dug out of our beautiful state go? The mining companies, the pollies (and their sons, haha), and our hilariously brutish police force. it is busted beyond repair.

WA is essentially a jenga tower made from turds: if you try to shift one block to right another you're gonna end up covered in shit.

and we're paying for it. sure, no COVID, but we're now the world's largest hermit kingdom. it's hellish. and it's because of a decade of barefaced corruption and greed has left us with nothing to do but piss in the wind and bury our heads in the sand.

and i've said this a million times before but our national media and our leading wonks have little to no understanding of WA , its history, or how it works. and it shows in all the shallow commentary. the disconnect is so immense we might as well be a foreign country tbh

it cracks me up to see Morrison making demands of WA when he's offering the state nothing in the way of help. i see the failure to build proper quarantine facilities etc as a national one. the national govt takes so much from WA and gives nothing back, so here we are, stranded.

this isn't to mention how fragile WA's economy is. tourism is our big moneymaker in terms of the retail and service industries. Freo is a ghost town. the recession was bad before COVID. avoiding lengthy lockdowns has helped it bounce back, but even 2 weeks would destroy us

we are still paying for decisions made 40 years ago. when the Charles Court government shut down all the passenger train lines that ran through country towns (even shut down the Freo to Perth line!) and gutted public infrastructure to make way for (now dead) shopping centres

schools, hospitals, transport--vital infrastructure--all sold off and torn down for a quick buck that dropped like a penny into another mega pit.

you've got to talk about this stuff within its context. we got here through generations of corrupt bungling.

anyway, when they say WA is making money they mean Twiggy Forrest is getting richer.

also: if you were in WA looking at NSW and Vic why would you think opening up like they want you to, like they did, is a good idea?

if the National government wont help Sydney and Melbourne, why the fuck would you think they'd help Perth??!?!?

i know we like to joke that 11 people live in WA but the reality is if COVID hit here like it did in Syd/Melb it wouldn't look any different in terms of spread. our population has grown exponentially since the boom. we all use 3 train lines. it'd spread like wildfire, easy

and then the whole state would topple for all the reasons listed above.

so yeah what else can we do? there is no winning here, for anyone. it's a miserable state of affairs that's the direct result of bad government and a rapacious private sector. what else can we do?

it infuriates me that the discourse around this is so shallow, on both sides of the argument. our media is just so embarrassingly bad, and i've seen the worst of it come from supposedly progressive wonks who take EVERYTHING as a personal affront. it's bigger than you, sorry!

and i've pitched this story/explainer to countless national publications and been turned down by each and every one cos the truth is no one outside of WA really cares about WA, other than when it's pissing them off.

i think the biggest frustration as a West Australian is: where does all that money go? What is that surplus being spent on? Metronet is on its way, but its still a long way off. But even w infinite money the fixes required would take years, *decades* even

so seeing McGowan boast about a surplus makes my blood boil. that money should be being thrown at infrastructure immediately, we really can't afford to dick around any longer.

or at least lets pay our nurses a little better ffs

Here’s a good and recent example of how bad things are at WA hospitals

amp.abc.net.au/article/100670…

Begging people to read past the first tweet in this thread before telling me McGowan is also to blame