The WA government will divert funding from the abandoned Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre upgrade to expand the state’s under-pressure hospital system at a cost of $1.5 billion which will include the purchase of St John of God’s Mount Lawley Hospital.

Premier Roger Cook made the funding announcement on Thursday, confirming the state would no longer proceed with plans to upgrade the ageing ‘shed on the Swan’ convention centre over concerns its cost would blow out.

Under the new fund, Cook said negotiations were underway to buy the Mount Lawley Hospital from private operator St John of God, which would immediately add 197 beds into the public system.

More than half the beds at that hospital are already filled with public patients.

The state will also abandon long-promised expansion

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