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

Adj. Prof. Alanna Geary, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, COVID-19 Health Incident Controller

Today we have seen an announcement for shift from ‘green’ to ‘amber’ in the COVID-19 traffic light system in Queensland, due to increased community transmission and hospitalisations for COVID-19 under the new variants.  This will be effective from tomorrow, Friday 11 Nov 22.

For us at Metro North Health, this means we should all be wearing a mask while at work from tomorrow. In high risk areas this is a P2/N95 mask. In all other areas this is a well fitted, flat surgical mask.  When you are in a non-clinical area and sitting in a physically distanced area, you are able to remove your mask. Please wear a mask when you are in a clinical area and/or moving about our facilities.

It also means masks are strongly encouraged on public transport, and indoors where you can’t socially distance.

It is important that we model great behaviour in the workplace.  Practicing good hand hygiene, responsible mask wearing and high compliance with transmission based precautions not only keeps you and your family safe, it protects our patients and community.

Whilst we cannot enforce mask-wearing for our visitors and patients, but we can strongly recommend it and use our well-honed de-escalation skills to encourage and support mask wearing.

We should also ensure:

• Hand sanitisation stations are fully stocked.
• Masks are readily available for staff and visitors.
• We are supporting safe visits at all times – we have no restrictions on visitors for any reason.
• We have adequate RAT supplies.
• We stay home if we are unwell and maintain good hand hygiene and social distancing where possible.

A Vidcast will be held tomorrow at 12:00pm – 1:00pm to discuss this in more detail.

Thanks for helping to keep our patients and each other safe.

Regards,

Liz Rushbrook and Alanna Geary