Dear colleagues,

I hope you all enjoyed the weekend! We have been having some perfect weather at the moment, and I’m sure many of you enjoyed spending some time outside! I am not a lover of the colder months, so I am enjoying these sunny days.

One new case of COVID-19 has been confirmed in Queensland overnight, bringing our State’s total of active cases to 27. This person has been identified as a close contact to the correctional services training centre cluster and contact tracing is underway. Again, we do not have evidence of unknown transmission happening in our community today, but we have to be alert to the possibility of that over the coming weeks. Please be vigilant.

Here are a few updates for today:

• Wearing masks
• Vidcast update
• Physical distancing reminder

Wearing masks

We continue to get quite a few mask and PPE-related questions on the vidcasts. We have a number of useful resources on the COVID-19 extranet site, so please familiarise yourself with these when you can. You don’t need to be on a Queensland Health computer to access this site, so send yourself the link if you’d like to read through it at home.

We’re doing more than the minimum requirement at Metro North regarding masks, and we are doing this because we believe it’s necessary to keep both staff and patients safe. If anything changes in this space, we will communicate that with you. For the time being, all staff are required to wear a mask at work. We will update you if that advice changes, but for the moment it is a requirement which we all must abide to. Thank you so much to all for doing the right thing and not only protecting yourself but your co-workers.

On another note, when leaving work for the day, can I please ask you to consider how you are disposing of your mask. Please make sure it is placed securely into a bin and that you wash your hands with soap and water or alcohol rub afterwards.

Vidcast update

Thank you to those who tuned into our vidcast this morning. This week the Executive and Incident Commander vidcasts will run on Wednesday and Friday, as well as one day over the weekend. There will also be a special ‘tips and tricks’ vidcast tomorrow with Catherine Watson, Anna Dowe and Meaghan Poulton who will provide some hints to help make wearing your mask easier – it will be a great vidcast so please tune in tomorrow at 11 am! As always, if you are not able to tune into the live session, you can view the COVID-19 vidcasts online. Could I also suggest that if you have any suggestions for Vidcasts that you think would assist then please let us know and we will do our best to get the appropriate expert to speak to you!!

Physical distancing reminder

I know there are some instances where physical distancing isn’t possible (such as on public transport), but please try to stand 1.5 m apart from others where you can. It might sound simple but standing a few inches away from someone isn’t enough. You need to be 1.5 m or 150 cm distanced from those around you. As Queensland Health pointed out on Facebook, this distance is about three small Frenchies long. If you’re standing only one or two Frenchies away from someone, you are too close!

The weekend was particularly busy for the MN EC team and while I was having some down time, they were working exceptionally hard. There are so many people in MN who are working above and beyond what would normally be expected of them and so while I was having a much wanted weekend off, I had an opportunity to reflect on what we have achieved in MN and in Queensland more broadly. So today my quote reflects how I feel about what we have been doing and what we have yet to achieve.

“Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible”. I think this is very reflective of the health system and in particular what we in MN are challenged with. Keep up the great work. We are kicking goals, even though sometimes it feels like one step forward and two steps back. Keep doing what you are doing, keep patting yourself and your colleagues on the back and remember every now and then to take a breath (albeit with a mask on)!!! Additionally, if you are not okay or you feel your colleagues are struggling then there are many options open to you and we strongly suggest that you use what is available. Keep checking up on each other, we are the caring professions and so let us treat our colleagues with the dignity, respect and compassion that we treat our patients with every day.

I will be handing over to Liz tomorrow until Friday, so for now I’ll say good-bye and have a great week! I will speak to you all again on Friday.

Kind regards,
Dr Elizabeth Rushbrook
Metro North Incident Commander

Metro North HHS – Overview of Cases*

*With effect 31 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.