Dear colleagues,

I hope you all had a great weekend! It’s my first day back after a week’s holiday and I am feeling refreshed and ready for the week ahead. As school holidays start today, I hope that you might be able to find some downtime to spend with your family and treat yourself to a getaway in our amazing Queensland backyard.

I’d like to raise a few things with you today:

• Domestic travel restrictions
• International travel and quarantine
• PPE usage

Domestic travel restrictions

Alanna raised travel restrictions in a message last week, but I’d like to provide some further clarification.

You can only enter Queensland if you are a Queensland resident, cross-border resident or fall under an exempt person category. If you have visited a COVID-19 hotspot in the last 14 days you must self-quarantine for 14 days, or as directed by an Emergency Officer. If you have plans to travel to Victoria for personal reasons, I urge you to reconsider considering the continuous climb of cases in the state and the large number of declared hotspots in that state.

All staff returning to Queensland from a hotspot will need to take personal leave for the 14-day self-quarantine requirements. If you have any queries regarding the latest travel restrictions, please have a read through the Border Restrictions Direction (no. 5).

International travel and quarantine

As you know, returning international travellers are required to undertake quarantine in a nominated hotel for 14 days. This is currently paid for by the Queensland Government. From 1 July, those who are required to quarantine in a nominated hotel will need to cover the cost themselves.

Those who had already booked a flight home before June 17 won’t be charged for their stay even if it lands after 1 July. And those unable to pay the fees will be able to apply for financial support.

Separately, Metro North is currently working with our state public health authorities to develop and implement testing of asymptomatic people during their quarantine period. This is in addition to the health screening and health support services we currently provide for those in quarantine.

PPE usage

This is just a note to remind you that PPE remains a vital resource and is currently made available for direct clinical care use only.

This is not due to a new decision or a change in stock levels, but simply a reminder that return of students was restricted to areas where use of PPE is not required (unless the student is involved in providing direct clinical care). This approach has been adopted to ensure that this vital resource remains freely available to clinicians providing clinical care in all settings and at all times where PPE is required.

The Metro-North EOC will keep you up to date of any changes to this approach. If you have any queries with COVID-19 PPE usage, please consult resources on the extranet or your line manager.

Again, I thank you all for your ongoing dedication and cooperation to helping keep our community, our patients, and each other safe. Tomorrow we hit the halfway mark of 2020 and I encourage you to stop and reflect on the last six months. I’m sure your personal and professional lives look a little different than how you had pictured them at the start of this year! I have already seen a planned camping trip fall by the wayside, my annual treck with some treasured ‘Navy day’ friends indefinitely postponed, and some major external events that I sponsor/host cancelled. 2020 is certainly very different to how I envisaged it.

Your contribution to slowing the spread of COVID-19 in Queensland has been a marathon effort, thank you! Please continue to be diligent with hand washing and social distancing, and, I can’t stress this enough, stay home if you’re sick. How we spend the next six months of the year will depend on each and every one of us doing the right thing.

Kind regards,

Dr Liz Rushbrook
Metro North Incident Commander

Metro North HHS – Overview of Cases*

*With effect 29 June 2020
**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.