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Medi-hotels were sold by Labor as a way to fix WA’s health system, but only one has been built

So-called medi-hotels formed a key part of Mark McGowan’s pitch to voters at the 2017 election, but five years on there is little sign of them.

Sold as a way to solve what was then labeled a “crisis” in the health system, three facilities were promised to free up hospital beds and ease strain on the system.

It was imagined they would mostly be used by regional patients who no longer needed the care of a full hospital bed but were not yet ready to go home.

Three were promised, but so far, the only one to open is a four-bed facility at Royal Perth Hospital.

Work on another, being built by a private provider in Murdoch, is under way with hopes it will be open in the next year.

Medi hotel plan
The site of the planned Murdoch medi-hotel near Fiona Stanley Hospital in 2017.(ABC News: Jacob Kagi)

But the third, promised by Joondalup, appears to be no more, with the Health Minister yesterday telling parliament for the second time that plans had changed.

“We’ve actually made a bigger investment in Joondalup Health Campus, an even bigger investment than a medi-hotel, by expanding the bed base and [adding] 102 mental health beds,” Amber-Jade Sanderson said.

“In discussion with the local community, and with the local provider, that’s what they wanted.”

Joondalup plan disintegrates

Cracks started to show when what was planned to be the first facility, near Fiona Stanley Hospital, was already a year behind schedule before the pandemic.

But plans for others remained alive, including when then-health minister Roger Cook told parliament in September 2021 that development approval had been received for a 110-bed mental health unit at Joondalup, with 90 inpatient beds also on the agenda.

Joondalup Health Campus emergency entrance with red and yellow signage.
The government says it has come up with bigger and better plans for Joondalup Health Campus.(Supplied: John Holland)

Mr Cook said while the focus was on completing the first phase of the expansion, “ambitions” remained for a medi-hotel in the future.

But just eight months later his replacement, Ms Sanderson, told budget estimates the now 102-bed mental health facility would be a “far greater contribution” than a medi-hotel – a sentiment she echoed yesterday.

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