Leading psychiatrists have urged the WA Government to abandon a plan to divert a third of beds at a women’s mental health facility to patients awaiting aged care placement.

The Department of Health has confirmed it will allocate 25 of the 75 beds at Perth’s Cockburn Health inpatient facility for women to other hospital patients who are waiting for a place in an aged care home.

But senior doctors from the facility, which is part of Fiona Stanley Fremantle Hospitals, are urging it to abandon the plan. 

Almost 50 psychiatrists, clinicians and managers, led by Dr Daniela Vecchio, warn that reducing acute mental health capacity at the facility — which has a 94% bed occupancy rate — will have consequences across the hospital system.