Dear Colleagues,

Happy Monday, welcome back to a new week. I hope you all managed to stay warm over the abnormally cold May weekend!  If this weekend is anything to judge by, we are in for a cold Winter – I might even need to dig out some of my ‘Canberra clothes’.  As the cold weather causes us to huddle together – please pay attention to your hand hygiene, cough etiquette and, if you haven’t already, I encourage you to get a flu vaccination. Metro North have almost exhausted our initial 16,000 vaccinations supply, but there is more supply available for everyone who needs it. Alternatively, see your GP or local pharmacy to receive your vaccination.

Our COVID-19 work includes a small amount of hospital care activity, but the demand for testing and treating suspect cases continues at a steady rate.  In addition, we are continuing to support travellers in state and home quarantine – often enabling them to access care if required or supporting exemptions for them to visit close relatives that are hospital patients.

Today’s update includes:

• CDNA National Guideline update
• New Public Health Direction
• Elective Surgery and hospital activity
• End to free parking at Victoria Park

CDNA National Guideline update

Further minor changes to the National Guideline were made on Friday evening – with revised threshold temperature for probable and suspect cases returning to ≥ 37.5 degrees.  The relevant Metro North guidance documents, forms and checklists are currently being updated to reflect this change.

New Public Health Direction

From 21 May 2020, the Aged Care Direction has been updated (No.4) replacing Aged Care Direction (No.3). The direction was updated to allow residents to leave the facility to attend a funeral or on any other compassionate grounds.

Elective Surgery and hospital activity

Metro North is playing a large part in restoring elective surgery and hospital activity within Queensland to ensure that Queenslanders are able to access the care they need. We have plans in place to ensure we restore services safely, whilst simultaneously ensuring we maintain surge plans and capacity to respond to any regional COVID-19 outbreaks that may occur. I anticipate that we will be operating in this environment for many many months and I look forward to working with you to ensure that our plans are robust, transparent, easy to understand and easy to implement.

End to Free Parking at Victoria Park

RBWH staff will continue to be able to park at the Victoria Park Golf Club free of charge until 30 June 2020.  After this time, this car park will no longer be available to hospital staff as the Golf Club is expected to be back to normal operating. We are extremely appreciative for the generosity shown by Victoria Park by making life a bit easier for our staff during out response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Please, if you have availed yourself of this service, feel free to show your support by flashing the Golf Club staff a smile and a wave when you can.

Alanna is back in the Incident Controller seat allowing me to go back to my EDMS role for a few days before returning on Friday. Have a great week all, enjoy our little bit of freedom while continuing to be responsible Queenslanders.

Kind regards,

Dr Liz Rusbrook
Metro North Incident Commander
Metro North HHS – Overview of Cases*

*With effect 1 June 2020

** Patients who meet the ‘release from isolation criteria’ but remain as an inpatient are no longer reflected in the total inpatient numbers.

***Metro North has three recorded deaths (one person a return traveller into NSW, who passed away in NSW)

**** These numbers reflect the cases being managed by Metro North.