WA health crisis: Police officers spent close to 7000 hours ramped at emergency departments in 2023-2024

WA Police officers spent almost 7000 hours caught up in hospital emergency departments, with a large portion of that time spent waiting for people with mental health issues to be assessed. A staggering analysis by the WA Police Union highlighted a growing crisis in the State’s health system and the toll it was taking on police resources and officers’ mental health. The union crunched figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, which showed police and correctional vehicles spent 6826 hours at public emergency departments in 2023-24, a 12.1 per cent increase from the previous year. The number of presentations to hospitals by police or prison staff jumped 9.4 per cent to 9752, the highest in three years. WA Police Union president Dave Flaherty said police officers were increasingly involved in taking people to hospitals, particularly those with mental health issues. “They’re not trained doctors, not trained psychologists, but they have capacity under the Mental Health Act to take people to hospital,” he said. The analysis revealed that on average, 36.3 per cent of police and correctional vehicle presentations to public EDs were mental health related. The time spent by officers with these patients is also on the rise, with a 42.3 per cent increase in ramping hours since 2019-20, reaching a record high of 2631 hours in 2023-24. Mr Flaherty said it was “extremely frustrating” for officers who were forced to wait with patients for long periods, only for the concerns of police to be dismissed by doctors. “Police officers are human, Police officers operate with compassion, and they want to take people to hospital to get care,” Mr Flaherty said. “Police officers are caught up at hospitals for long periods of time, overseeing, supervising, caring for people who are suffering from mental health issues, “The concerns that the police officers have are not the concerns that the doctors have. To see (patients) getting released is just demoralising.” The union boss said this was particularly unnerving for officers who deal with the same people “over and over and over” again, sometimes with tragic consequences. “To happily attend tasks for the same people that sometimes are escalated from a welfare check to a coronial matter because these people have taken their own life . . . you can only imagine the frustration and the angst that goes along with that,” he said. Mr Flaherty said police officers were being forced to accept the responsibility and take the burden for issues that were outside their control and training. “Being mentally unwell is not a policing issue. It shouldn’t be a policing issue,” he said. “There should be health practitioners, mental health practitioners, that can attend and assist.” Mr Flaherty said the increasing involvement with people suffering from mental health issues was a contributing factor to the decline in police officers’ mental health and the high rate of resignations from the force. “We do some exit interviews with members as they’re resigning from WA Police,” he said. “We talk to them and they say dealing with mental health issues just wears you down. “You can’t help but take that home . . . I’m seeing it myself. Police Officers suffering from anxiety, depression, PTSD, it is escalating. “The rigours of policing, the demand of policing, the pressure of policing . . . it’s not sustainable unless we get something done about it.” Mr Flaherty said the State needed a new facility for specific mental health issues that was “suitably resourced” and could take pressure away from mainstream hospitals. “The responsibility of their care and their assessment should be done by a trained mental health practitioner, not police,” he said. A WA Police spokesman said the force was “currently working collaboratively with several government agencies including the Department of Health, to maximise our ability to respond to triple zero calls from the community”. “We are particularly focused on increasing that capability as the weather warms and calls from the community escalate,” he said.