COVID-19 update 367 | 28/02/2022

Dear colleagues,

Today we bring you a combined flood update and COVID-19 update. There is a lot of important information in today’s message so please take time to go through the below.

• Flood update 
  • Thank you
  • Infrastructure
  • Staffing and reporting for work
  • Planned care
• COVID-19 update 
  • Tier 2
  • Vaccination and fever clinics

FLOOD UPDATE

Thank you 

Firstly, thank you. We have seen a mammoth effort over the weekend to continue delivering care to our community and the number of staff who have stayed at work or reported for duty at an alternative location is amazing. Health is an essential service and this weekend you have demonstrated your immense dedication in pulling together in a time of need.

We have some awesome stories of teamwork across Metro North and with our partners from the weekend, such as finding a safe route to transport a labouring mother from TPCH to RBWH; our pharmacy teams working out how to get urgent medication to people cut off from their homes and taking refuge near Kilcoy; and supporting the rescue of several patients in need of urgent treatment around the Moreton Bay region. Our Mental Health teams have also worked through the weekend providing support to patients in various evacuation centres or at home.

This weekend around 100 staff were unable to get home and stayed overnight at their workplace. Thank you to the staff who made this possible and supported their colleagues with meals and changes of clothes.

Infrastructure 

Our Building, Engineering and Maintenance teams are currently assessing our facilities. There is minor to significant flooding across the board.

Campbell Place (CitiLink building) has been inundated due to a large amount of water on Bowen Bridge Rd and Butterfield St. The building will be uninhabitable for at least this week while we wait for water go down and assessments to take place. Please talk to your line manager about alternative work locations.

All hospitals have had some degree of flooding or water leaks, including the lower ground floor of RBWH. Many of the lifts across our facilities are out of service due to water in the lift wells – these need to be made safe before they can be used. Our large number of community buildings have fared well in general, with some repairs needed to our Aspley building after our colleagues in the Queensland Police Service needed emergency access to seek shelter during a rescue operation.

Mental Health has also had water in several buildings including at Nundah, TPCH and RBWH.

If there are water leaks or flooding in your area, please let your local BEMs team know. Do not use any electrical equipment that has been submerged.

Staffing and reporting for work 

Healthcare is a critical essential service. Over the past few days many staff have been unable to get to their usual workplace and thus staffing levels may be disrupted for a few days.

If you are unable to safely get to your usual workplace, please talk to your line manager now about whether you can report to another Metro North facility. This is especially important for clinical, clinical support and operational staff in order to continue our services.

For staff who are unable to leave their homes due to road closures but are able to work from home, please discuss this with your line manager. HR can provide advice for staff who are directly flood affected.

Planned care 

Yesterday we made the decision to postpone planned care across the health service for today.

Directorates will assess today whether to resume planned care tomorrow, depending on workforce levels and the status of infrastructure.  We would expect to have returned to usual levels of planned care before the end of this week

COVID-19 UPDATE

Today there were 3312 reported new COVID cases in Queensland.

Move to Tier 2 

Metro North Health will now move to Tier 2 of our COVID-19 response plan due to the moderate community transmission we are seeing and because of a trending decrease in cases in our facilities. Please familiarise yourselves with Tier 2 requirements which are being implemented across the health service. 

Key points for our move to Tier 2 include:

• Staff to wear PPE according to PPE matrix
• Virtual appointments where appropriate
• Category 1, 2, 3 elective surgery and category 4, 5 and 6 procedures, prioritising long waits
• Optimise use of STARS for planned care
• Outpatients must wear masks in waiting rooms
• Concierge at ED Triage
• Dental inpatients wear level 1 masks, maintain activity and critical referrals from other HHSs 
• IC messages will move from daily to twice a week
• Vidcasts will move from twice a week to once a week
• Meetings should adhere to social distancing
• Vaccinated volunteers and consumers can be in low risk areas without direct patient contact
• Students must be up to date with COVID vaccinations
• Visitors per CHO directions
• Training can resume with social distancing
• Assess service delivery impacts for non-essential training

Please note, we remain in the high-risk category in the Queensland Health PPE matrix, which outlines the appropriate PPE for your type of work. This is separate to Metro North’s tiered response. We will advise of any changes to PPE requirements.

Vaccination and fever clinics 

Due to the severe weather over the weekend, Metro North’s vaccination clinics and school pop ups are closed today.

Redcliffe fever clinic is open today, but other sites are closed. RAT collection is available at EDs for other sites.

Kind regards,

Louise O’Riordan and Dr Liz Rushbrook
Metro North Health Incident Controller

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Helpful links

• Register your positive RAT result
• Upload evidence of your vaccine or booster
• Vaccination locations
• Qld Health general COVID-19 page
• Metro North COVID-19 extranet
• COVID vidcast recordings on QHEPS

Metro North HHS – overview of cases*

Norfolk Island – overview of cases***

*As at the above date
**Metro North Health has recorded deaths (one person a return traveller into NSW, who passed away in NSW)
*** As part of an Intergovernmental Agreement, from 1 January 2022 Metro North Health is providing a number of health support services to Norfolk Island. This includes advice and support to staff on island in terms of managing COVID patients.  The numbers in this section of the table refer to COVID patients who remain on Norfolk Island and are receiving direct care by staff on Norfolk Island.