The interior of the new Fiona Stanley Hospital Intensive Care Unit. Source: Supplied
The new Fiona Stanley Hospital emergency triage for adults. Source: Supplied
The new Fiona Stanley Hospital staff work station. Source: Supplied
WA's new flagship hospital will be short by 115 full-time medical staff when it opens - under the best case scenario.
An internal report obtained by The Sunday Times shows there is a "high risk" Fiona Stanley Hospital will face extensive staff shortages across a number of specialities, including burns, obstetrics and almost all areas of nursing.
The hospital was due to open in April next year, but the Barnett Government has been forced to push that back to staged openings from October.
The document reveals the Government is looking at several ideas to stretch staff at the hospital. These include getting nurses and doctors to work across multiple health sites in the area, increasing the number of foreign and junior doctors and asking employees to broaden their areas of expertise.
Other hospitals in the south metro area face impacts with the Health Department conceding its "once-in-a-generation" shake up of the South Metropolitan Health Service is still mostly unplanned.
State rehabilitation services, currently housed at Shenton Park, and the Royal Perth Hospital burns unit will be among the services to relocate to FSH between October 2014 and April 2015.
Even if all clinical staff working at these and other moving services make the switch with their respective units the new hospital faces a "clinical staff gap" of 115 full-time equivalent staff.
A SMHS spokeswoman refused to confirm the projected shortage to The Sunday Times because she said workforce planning was still in progress.
But she conceded a number of areas had been identified as "of concern". These included burns, obstetrics, ultrasound operators and many areas of nursing such as neonatal, emergency medicine and theatre.
The spokeswoman also confirmed forcing staff to work across multiple sites was being considered.
It is projected the new $2 billion hospital, which reached practical completion this month, will require 3208 full-time health staff when it's fully up and running. These include 727 medical appointments, 646 medical support staff and 1835 nurses and midwives.
Opposition health spokesman Roger Cook said it was "extraordinary" that the Government still didn't have definitive plans on how to staff a big hospital due to be treating emergency patients by early 2015.
"The hospital, which will remain patient-less for the next 12 months, looks like it will also lack the staff it needs to deliver proper health services," he said.
"The failure in workforce planning has been a hallmark of this Government's governance of the health system. "
The Sunday Times has been asking the Health Department for details of its plans for the SMHS reconfiguration since October. Each time the agency replied that details were yet to be finalised.
The Sunday Times this week obtained the latest working document under Freedom of Information laws - a "draft" report written in December 2012.
Australian Medical Association WA vice-president Michael Gannon said doctors were concerned about the "absence of detail" being provided by the Health Department.
"Although it might have appeal to a bureaucrat in East Perth (head office) to have someone where they can, at the push of a pen, redeploy to Rockingham or Fiona Stanley or Bentley (hospitals), that doesn't show respect to people who work in those places," he said.
Health Services Union WA state secretary Dan Hill said the report showed a "lack of appropriate and timely planning" by the Health Department.
"I think it's a real concern for the community," he said.
An extra $75 million has been allocated by the Barnett Government for the commissioning of the FSH and reconfiguration of SMHS, according to the midyear budget review released this week.
But it said the true cost of delivering this reform was unknown.
