AMA (WA) President Dr Andrew Miller has been frank about the government’s response to COVID in interviews on 6PR, the ABC and other media.

“We need to up our game,” Dr Miller said. “We’ve been great at border control but the B117 variant is what we had feared from a mutation point of view in this virus.”

Dr Miller has reiterated that the government needs to do more, especially since the mutation is 70 per cent more transmittable than the original virus.

“We’re not taking this virus seriously enough,” he said. “We’re not paying it enough respect. We don’t have proper airborne protection in place, and Australia is setting itself up for a big fall.”

He pointed out that we still have people working in hotel quarantine while holding down other jobs, quarantine hotels with restaurants with shared staff, and bus drivers who do not have proper respiratory masks transporting recent arrivals to quarantine.

Dr Miller said he was staggered that our government had not previously insisted earlier that people coming to Australia get tested before boarding a plane.

“I don’t think you need an expert committee to sit there and tell you it’d be a good idea to weed out all the people who have a positive test,” Dr Miller said.

National Cabinet has only recently endorsed the need for international arrivals to have a negative COVD test result before boarding their flight to Australia. 

According to AMA (WA) Vice President Dr David McCoubrie, ambulance ramping in Western Australian hospitals has been building for years.

“We’ve been averaging over 100 hours of ramping a day for many months,” he said. “The situation is a threat to the health of West Australians.

“There are examples where we’ve had people on ramps for over six hours, which is shocking news and something that needs immediate attention.”

Ambulance ramping and overcrowding in our hospitals has never been worse.

“On the current trajectory, we will break the record for ramping in January,” Dr McCoubrie said. “So far we have 2,000 hours of ramping in January, which is traditionally one of the lowest overcrowding months.”

Overcrowding is not a result of COVID. It is a result of an underinvestment in hospital beds for many years.

“The AMA (WA) calls on the Government to invest more money into health,” Dr McCoubrie said. “Our figures show we need 440 beds just to reach the national average. They’re big numbers and require a big investment.”

If you have financial goals you’d like to achieve this year, AMA Financial Services suggests some simple steps to help you get there. The first step is to choose a goal that’s specific and attainable, so you’re more likely to succeed.

Congratulations to Dr Chris Cokis, winner of our 2021 membership renewals competition. Dr Cokis will enjoy two nights’ accommodation at The Ritz-Carlton Perth in a deluxe room for renewing before 31 December.

If you haven’t renewed, you can still do so.

St John of God Subiaco Hospital is running an education event on the ‘team approach to managing back pain’. This training is perfect for general practitioners, physiotherapists, other allied health professionals and nurses.

Tuesday 9 February 2021. 

Registration at 6.30pm for a 7.00pm start.

More than 33,000 people used Quit Victoria’s Make a Plan tool in 2020. The tool helps people identify their triggers for smoking and their motivations for giving up, and work out an approach that works for them. This step-by-step approach helps people get a full picture of what it takes to quit.

The tool asks people to set a date when they will quit smoking so they can start to take back control. It is an alternative to a new years resolution that may have less chance of success.