1 May 2020 – COVID-19 (coronavirus)

Dear Colleagues,

Today is Administration Professionals Day, the day we celebrate all the people who are often behind the scenes making things run smoothly. The past few months there’s been a lot of attention (well deserved) on our frontline clinical staff for their work in responding to the pandemic, but our admin staff play a critical role in our ability to deliver excellent healthcare.

The admin person is often the first face a patient sees when they come into our care and makes a huge difference to the patient’s experience of their care. Admin staff keep people like me focussed on what we need to do by taking care of all the many things that would otherwise consume our days. So, to all our admin professionals at all levels of the HHS and in all parts of the organisation: thank you. Your contribution does not go unnoticed and is most definitely appreciated.

We’ve had another good week in Queensland, with several days of no new COVID-19 cases. As the Queensland testing capacity is enhanced, we are working on establishing population surveillance through enhanced testing processes within targeted asymptomatic cohorts within our HHS, including select groups of patients attending our health service and for workforces initially within Intensive Care Units, Emergency Departments, Surgical and Birth Suites.

People who are tested as part of population surveillance are not required to isolate pending their test results, but of course, are required to continue to operate within all of the relevant Queensland Health Directions of the day.

As we move back to more of our usual clinical activity, please remember that there will still be challenging moments and we need to all look out for each other. Our union colleagues at Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union, Together Union and Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation Queensland have joined me in thanking you for your work so far and ask you to please take care of yourself and each other. You can read the joint memo here.

For the past few weeks we’ve been running weekday live vidcast sessions on COVID-19 related topics. These have been very well received and I’ve enjoyed chatting with so many of you. As we transition to our new normal, we’re shifting the vidcasts to once a week so you can still ask questions directly of me and our executive. This week my co-host was our Executive Director Clinical Services Dr Liz Whiting.

On Tuesday I’ll be joined on the vidcast by our Executive Director Nursing and Midwifery Services Alanna Geary for International Midwives Day. You can join us from 11am-12pm via Zoom link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/97862663976. If you would like to ask questions in advance and vote on the topics for the vidcast, use the Slido event code: ‘vidcast2’.

Our weekly COVID-19 newsletter is now available online.

Ned is a big fan of cooking shows like many Australians. I would hate to be on Goggle Box when we are watching cooking shows as we engage in passionate debate about the merit of parsnip crisps. I have a clear stance of why ruin the great concept of a crisp by making it out of a parsnip. So, over this long weekend we are going to have a challenge of Sam and I vs Ned in a cook off. Sam has suggested that he and I order out; of course, this comes from the young man who believes two-minute noodles in the microwave is cooking. I do not hold out much hope that we will win the challenge. All suggestions of what we could make will be considered! My mother came over from New Zealand to spend time with us in January for her 80th birthday and I have always made jokes she is like Marie in ‘Everybody loves Raymond’. Unfortunately, we can’t use her as a ring-in for our cooking team.

Please remember to continue your physical distancing, handwashing and respiratory hygiene if you’re taking advantage of some of the eased restrictions this weekend.

Regards,

Shaun