Dear colleagues,

As you know it has been an eventful week:

• a second person connected to the hotel cleaner tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday evening with additional contact tracing locations announced late Monday. Thank you to our fever clinics and testing teams for increasing testing capacity at short notice to accommodate the subsequent surge in demand for testing.
• Two further cases of the UK strain of coronavirus were detected in Hotel Quarantine yesterday; and
• Today, the Queensland Government has initiated an urgent response after genomic sequencing of six previously identified COVID-19 cases (including the three above) indicated that they were linked.

The urgent response has seen our staff support the relocation of hotel quarantine guests from Hotel Grand Chancellor to another quarantine facility. This phase of the urgent response is likely to go well into tonight and I take my hat off to how flexible and willing our staff have been to support this work.

PPE requirements in Metro North  

I’d like to clarify correct use of PPE within Metro North.

Firstly, the requirements of the Restrictions for Impacted Areas Direction No. 2 applies to each and every one of us, as people who work and/or live in impacted areas. These requirements are the minimum requirements to follow unless a higher requirement applies.

Secondly, since Friday 08 January, Metro North has been required by the Chief Health Officer to operate under the Moderate Risk requirements. The minimum standard for routine clinical care (when there isn’t a higher PPE requirement), is a face mask and protective eyewear. Please be aware that not all PPE is disposable and reusable protective eyewear/goggles should be cleaned with Clinell wipes and stored for re-use as per local operating processes.

For full PPE requirements, refer to PPE Escalation document – “Moderate risk”.

Current restrictions from 6pm Monday 11 January to 1am Thursday 22 January

Face masks must be worn in indoor spaces, except your home, including:

• shopping centres, supermarkets, retail outlets and indoor markets
• hospitals and aged care facilities
• churches and places of worship
• libraries
• indoor recreational facilities and gyms
• indoor workplaces (where you can’t socially distance)
• public transport, taxis and rideshare
• airports and travelling on planes.

You must carry a face mask with you at all times when you leave home. You must wear it when it’s not possible to have 1.5m between you and other people.

Staff are required to wear a facemask in communal areas, when moving around your facility and campus inside and outside, and anywhere you can’t reliably physically distance (1.5m) from others.

Metro North is currently at Tier 1 of our COVID response plan, in addition to the restrictions for all personnel and healthcare workers within the Greater Brisbane region as above. This means that there are further local management actions required, including local visitor restrictions and concierge to ensure we can implement physical distancing.

Hospital visitors – pregnancy care 

I’ve had a few staff seeking clarification about pregnancy care appointments. In addition to the Directed restrictions to visitors as per the Hospital Visitors Direction No 13, to the following Metro North guidelines apply (as approved by the operator of the hospital):

• In the allowed circumstances (below), visitors are limited to one person;
• Directorates can further limit visiting times, and length of visits to meet operational needs;

Allowed visitors include:

• Visitor of a patient who is a child;
• Visitor of a patient being provided end of life care; or
• Visitor of a patient being provided pregnancy or maternity related care; or
• Visitor of a patient with a disability who requires support from a carer; or
• Visitor as approved by the operator of the hospital for emergency or other compassionate grounds

Concierge services will continue to ensure we can manage visitors efficiently and effectively with local Directorate guidelines. Thank you everyone who has nominated to assist with concierge services.

Thank you all for staying vigilant and keeping up your appropriate PPE use, physical distancing and hand hygiene.

Regards,

Dr Liz Rushbrook
Metro North Incident Commander

Current MN Response Tier Activated – Tier 1

Metro North HHS – overview of Cases*

HHS	Patients being managed by HHS						FEVER Clinics
	Total In-patients			Virtual Ward / HITH / or similar	Deaths **	Total cases managed by HHS (including recovered) ***	# of clinics	Presentations
		ICU Pts
		ICU-NOT Ventilated	ICU-Ventilated					Last 24 hrs	TOTAL^
MN TOTAL	11	0	0	0	3	413	5	617	131,919

*With effect 13 January 2021, 1000
**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.