Dr Liz Rushbrook, Chief Medical Officer, Emergency Management and Business Continuity

Special COVID-19 pandemic leave

The current COVID-19 wave is just starting to decline with the number of presentations to our Virtual Ward and Emergency Departments and requiring our care beginning to settle.  There is still COVID-19 around though, so we do need to maintain our attention to public health and infection control measures.

If you need to take leave due to COVID, please remember that the Special pandemic leave arrangements remain in place. Applications should be submitted in MyHR via a smart leave request (which can now be done from home or a personal device) and approved by your relevant delegate.

Just go to the website, and after logging in, click on ‘submit form’ then select ‘smart leave request’. The leave type is ‘Special Pandemic Leave’. Submitting your leave requests in a timely manner (preferably on the same day that you notify your supervisor) ensures that we have visibility of how COVID-19 is affecting our workforce near real time.

You can visit the COVID-19 leave entitlements QHEPS page for more information and resources.

Voluntary Assisted Dying update

It has now been almost two weeks since the Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2021 legislation came into effect.

If you haven’t already, please complete the Voluntary Assisted Dying Education module for healthcare workers. The training is open to all staff and will equip you with the knowledge to meet your obligations to our patients and community. The training includes specific information relevant to different types of healthcare workers, the strict eligibility criteria, legal requirements, and the minimum timeframes for requests.

We continue to welcome many of our doctors into our authorised voluntary assisted dying practitioner community. I commend our doctors to consider if they would like to become an authorised provider.  More information is available here, or alternatively, we can put you in contact with an authorised provider in your Directorate.

Contact the Metro North VAD team via MetroNorth_VAD@health.qld.gov.au or the Queensland Health QVAD-Support team at 1800 431 371 if you have questions that aren’t covered on QHEPS.

Community Antibiotic Shortages

There are shortages of commonly used antimicrobials in Australia. The situation is continually changing, and it is unclear when it will resolve. Oral formulations of antimicrobials that are known or anticipated to have limited availability include:

• Amoxicillin
• Amoxicillin – clavulanic acid
• Cefalexin
• Ciprofloxacin
• Flucloxacillin
• Metronidazole
• Nitrofurantoin
• Phenoxymethylpenicillin (Penicillin V)
• Trimethoprim
• Trimethoprim – sulfamethoxazole

Metro North Directorates have been able to maintain supplies of most antimicrobials, sometimes by sourcing alternate brands through Therapeutic Goods Administration regulations.

Clinical teams should be mindful that patients prescribed antimicrobials listed above on discharge or as an outpatient may have difficulty getting their prescription dispensed at a community pharmacy. I encourage you to liaise with a hospital pharmacist to discuss supply in these circumstances.

Liz