Hastie slams hospital petition ‘riddled with errors’

Although GetUp claimed the cut is “roughly the equivalent of 105 hospital beds, or 177 nurses, or 73 doctors”, Mr Hastie said the petition was “riddled with errors and failed the most basic understanding of how our hospital system is funded”.

“GetUp’s data is substantially out of date – their hospital numbers pre-date the agreement between the Prime Minister and the states and territories which injected $2.9 billion into our public hospital system,” Mr Hastie said.

“This increased funding in WA to more than $10.7 billion over five years.

“That means hospitals in Canning, such as the Peel Health Campus, are substantially better off than in the GetUp numbers.”

But GetUp’s campaign director Natalie O’Brien said the figures had been worked out by economists who sifted through “opaque hospitals funding data”.

“Prime Minister Turnbull is taking billions of dollars in hospital funding cuts to the upcoming election,” she said.

“Voters deserve to know how these cuts may impact on their local hospital service so that they can make an informed decision come election day”

Mr Hastie said the GetUp’s campaign was based on Labor’s unfunded $57 billion hospital “funding fantasy”.

“It is classic Labor – politics first, patients last,” he said.

A spokesperson for Peel Health Campus said the hospital would not comment on the petition as it was a federal government issue.

The petition had been circulated in Mandurah on social media and had attracted 150 signatures.