Dear colleagues,

For those of you who had a public holiday on Friday and had the day off, I bet there were some serious cases of Mondayitis across the health service this morning – it’s always tough coming back to work after a long weekend! I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and are refreshed and ready for another week. However, when you love where you work, you’ll never work another day in your life. We are so lucky to be part of this health service and more importantly, our health service is lucky to have YOU! Thank you to everyone, for all you do every day and particularly those who did work on the weekend.

More great news… since we last spoke there have only been 3 positive cases of COVID-19. While this might not sound like great news, it is! One case was a return resident from New South Wales currently in hotel quarantine while the other two are crew on board a cargo vessel off the coast of Queensland. None of these cases are a risk to our community. Additionally, there have been no cases of community transmission in Queensland in 28 days! I marvelled this morning while driving to work that life was beginning to seem rather ‘normal’ again and how great it felt to be a Queenslander, and a MN staff member!!

Victoria’s positive case numbers continue to decline with under 300 new cases recorded yesterday proving the effectiveness of their lockdown. My heart breaks for the residents and families of the impacted Aged Care Facilities who have experienced losses from COVID-19 in Victoria. If you are communicating with anyone in Victoria, family, friends or colleagues please let them know Metro North stands with you, and that you and your people are in our thoughts always.

Queensland Borders

In a press conference today, Queensland’s Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk confirmed there are no intentions of opening the Queensland borders until community transmission of COVID-19 in Victoria and NSW is under control. While this will be a difficult thing to hear for some of us who have family and friends across the border, it is necessary to keep Queenslanders safe.  We continue to do so well, and we need to maintain the status quo.

Please do not travel to Victoria, NSW or the ACT unless absolutely necessary as you will be required to serve 14 days mandatory hotel quarantine at your own expense. Contrary to what you may have heard, as healthcare workers, we are not exempt from this quarantine requirement.

Metro North

At Metro North we remain at Tier 1 Pandemic Response and will for some time. The purpose for remaining at this level is to ensure any potential community transmission within Metro North stays out of our facilities.

I ask that you continue to live by our Metro North Mantra at work and at home and to encourage others to do the same!

I also remind you to continue the great work you are doing in supporting and looking after each other.  Remember a kind word, a simple hello, an RUOK conversation are so important now.  We are in this together and no one is immune to a feeling of anxiousness from time to time.  Our MN Values in Action Respect, Integrity, High Performance, Compassion and Team Work must be evident in everything we do.

“Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine”.  Have a great night everyone and I will update you all again tomorrow.

Kind regards,
Alanna Geary
Metro North Incident Commander

Metro North HHS – Overview of Cases*

*With effect 17 August 2020, 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.