14 April 2020 – COVID-19 (coronavirus)

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome back to those of you who enjoyed your Easter long weekend at home and a special thank you to all Metro North staff who spent their Easter working across our facilities. I was glad to see in Liz’s message some of you being treated with deliveries of Easter chocolates – well deserved!

After an impressive response, applications have now closed for the Director of Clinical Operations roles across Metro North. Soon Redcliffe Hospital, The Prince Charles Hospital and Caboolture Hospital will have additional support to manage operations during the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery.

Our community’s response to COVID-19 and actions to date to slow the spread are working. As a health service, we will shortly need to consider how we balance patient needs and maintaining our preparedness.

As promised, here’s your weekly update:

Preparedness initiatives last week:

• Established the Metro North Workforce team to assist Directorate Workforce Coordinators with staff shortages and reallocation.
• Initiated planning for staff accommodation options for fatigued staff and staff with vulnerable family members.
• Preparing Virtual ED to go live soon.
• Continued planning with Department of Health on accommodation for people requiring quarantine or isolation who cannot use their own accommodation.
• Consolidated information for GPs about the care and management of women requiring antenatal care. This information is available for healthcare providers here.
• Working to support the medical needs of travellers in quarantine by arranging medical procedures and infusions for patients with long standing or chronic medical conditions and coordinating COVID-19 testing.
• Working with general practitioners to support people in quarantine to access specialist mental health services as needed.

Our activity for the past week

• As at 10am yesterday, we have had 325 confirmed people with COVID-19 in Metro North, of whom 221 have recovered.
• Expanded testing criteria in the last week has seen some increases in fever clinic presentation. Assessment and testing through fever clinics bring the total to 10,325 presentations in the Metro North region.
• Launched Metro North Community Sessions as part of the vidcast series for our community and consumers. Here, they can learn about our preparations and response to COVID-19 and can submit questions to our team. This video is available on our Metro North website (public facing).
• Continue to build the patient-facing COVID-19 webpage for the community to access information relevant to their local health facility including visitor restrictions.

Looking after our people

Last week we launched the Staff Wellbeing webpage on the COVID-19 extranet that will continue to be updated with resources for emotional, physical, financial and social wellbeing. There you will find information on the COVID-19 HR Hotline and links for people interested in becoming RUOKers and Peer Responders.

We are prioritising a rollout of our staff flu vaccination program to those working on the frontline and will then be provided to the rest of our staff.

There is a strong focus on staff wellbeing initiatives and tools including working on the COVID-19 Staff Wellbeing online hub being launched later this week. Our staff guidelines around staff support for those who are vulnerable has also been updated.

We are developing a fatigue self-assessment card which will attach along with your ID card to ensure adequate breaks are taken.

To keep you informed, we have held 11 staff vidcasts since launching the series two weeks ago. These are a great tool in keeping up with the latest and most up to date information. Vidcasts will continue through the coming weeks.

Preparedness initiatives in the coming week

• PPE Advisory Group continue to refine PPE guidelines, performed weekly.
• Working with our union partners to collaborate as a united front to address occupational violence.
• Continuing to support staff training in virtual work environment, including virtual training and tools for occupational violence.
• Mobilising our Better Together Health Van with a focus on the health and wellbeing of our First Nations people.
• Finalising agreement with private hospital providers.

Maximising our resources

We are continuing to source additional PPE and seek alternative suppliers. Our community and partners have 3D printed more than 3000 face shield frames which is an indication of how much people want to support us in responding to COVID-19.

Over the coming weeks, there will be more opportunities for Metro North staff to engage in education about the correct use of personal protective equipment (PPE). This includes reviewing our existing PPE education material and identifying possible gaps in knowledge or confidence in choosing and using PPE correctly.

Regards,

Shaun