Dear colleagues,

Our Easter long weekend has come to an end. While it was certainly a little different this year, I felt lucky to have spent it both at home with my loved ones and at work with a team of hardworking and kind people from across Metro North.

A special thank you to all those who held the fort over the weekend. Your efforts are greatly appreciated. For those of you who stayed home, I hope you’re all feeling well-rested and full of chocolate! For the first time in a little while, I can safely say I’m feeling both.

I have a few updates for you today:

• Schools open for term two for essential workers
• Communicating COVID-19 to children
• Easter activity across our facilities

Schools open for term two for essential workers

Today Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced that Queensland schools will remain open for term two for children of essential workers and vulnerable students. Other students will receive education from home via remote learning online.

As our Metro North workforce is essential, our parents or guardians will still be able to send their children to school in term two. If you need to consider making alternate work arrangements, as always, please discuss this with your line manager. You can also get in touch with the COVID-19 HR Hotline on 3647 2819 if you have any questions. They are open weekdays from 8am – 5pm.

Communicating COVID-19 to children

When you’re not fielding COVID-19-related questions from your adult friends and family, I imagine those of you with young children are receiving lots of questions from your little people. While my children don’t really fall into the ‘little’ category anymore, I can assure you the questions are endless.

Among the resources on our new Staff Wellbeing page on the COVID-19 extranet is an excellent short story for children about COVID-19. It explains why it’s so important to stay indoors in child-friendly language and provides ideas for ‘chasing away the bored’ at home. Parents of young children might find this a useful resource to help them make sense of the changes we’re all experiencing.

Easter activity across our facilities 

Luckily, the Easter Bunny knows what it’s like being an essential worker at a time like this, so he was extra generous to some of our staff over the long weekend.

Reports from all facilities show there was absolutely no shortage of chocolate across Metro North. Even the Easter Bunnies on the RBWH concierge desk are social distancing. We’re getting pretty good at this!

I’ll leave you on this Easter Monday with one last egg-citing update, no more Easter puns from me for now on! What a relief for you all.

Regards,

Dr Liz Rushbrook

Metro North Health Incident Controller

Metro North HHS – Overview of Cases*

*With effect 1000 12 April 2020
**Metro North has two recorded deaths