Perth Voice Interactive

ABYSMAL living standards in cheap accommodation may explain why many country people visiting Perth for medical treatment prefer to sleep in Wellington Square.

The WA government’s patient-assisted travel scheme gives patients $60 per night towards accommodation.

The WA country health service recommends several “reasonably priced” options near the main Perth hospitals, but all cost more than $60 (unless you share a room with six people).

The service stresses it doesn’t necessarily “endorse” these options, and reviews make Fawlty Towers look five-star.

Jewell House, being shut down by the WA health department because the 40-year-old building has reached the end of its useful life, has been hammered by people who stay there.

“Hardly an infestation as implied by other reviews.”

A review from March 2014: “What put me off this ‘hostel’ the most? Was it being eyed up for my luggage on the way in? Perhaps the naked man using a hair dryer on his legs with his bedroom door open? Perhaps the strange lady sat in her own mess on the communal sofa silently staring at a switched off TV?” Another reviewer said they couldn’t use the lift “as they were transporting a urine soaked mattress god only knows where” and on his second day there was a stabbing.

One of the few positive scores reckons others are overblown, as they only saw one cockroach. “Hardly an infestation as implied by other reviews,” the charitable traveller said.

Another cheap accommodation joint had some positive reviews, but also complaints that “there were cockroaches in the kitchen for a start” and that the place is “smelly, noisy, messy… crappy tags on the busy bathroom walls, broken toilet locks and unfixed glory holes in shower cubicles”.

Perth Liberal MP Eleni Evangel says “patients often choose to stay in the park so they are not separated from family members who do not get accommodation funding”.

Many come for dialysis and Ms Evangel says more progress is needed to make those services available in the country.

by DAVID BELL