Dale Dally-Watkins, Executive Director

Happy New Year

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and managed to find some time to recharge. For those who worked over the Christmas and New Year period, thank you so much for caring for our patients and permitting colleagues time away to spend with their family and friends – it is very much appreciated.

A big thank you also to the Dietetics and Food Services team for providing patients with a memorable Christmas meal, complete with festive touches such as bonbons and Christmas napkins/cutlery. Even those patients requiring texture modified food did not miss out, with great care and attention taken to plan an appropriate menu, in conjunction with the Speech Pathology Team.

One of my resolutions for 2024, and I imagine one popular with others, is to achieve a better work/life balance. I plan to walk early each morning and soak in the quiet sounds of nature as well as plan a couple of holidays over the year to spend travelling (my great love) and routine catch ups with my family and friends. If you are not one for New Year’s resolutions as such, the start of a new year is still a great time to reflect on what you did last year that was enjoyable and how to schedule more of those activities in 2024. It might be travel, pursuing a particular hobby or catching up more with friends or relatives.

Safe removal of Christmas decorations

I’ve noticed we still have a few Christmas decorations up around STARS. Just a friendly reminder to be very careful when taking down Christmas decorations from walls, timber panelling, ceiling tiles, etc., to limit any potential damage to the building. Staff are reminded that the use of sticky tape and blu-tack on any surface other than glass or laminate is not permitted at STARS. Any damage to the building will result in a rectification cost to STARS as tenants of the building.

Patient Ben home for Christmas

It is always wonderful to see our long-term patients leave for home and this was the case with Ben, one of our BIRU patients. Ben suffered a traumatic brain injury on his cattle property near Barcaldine and after initially spending time at the Royal, came over to STARS to begin his extensive rehabilitation. Thanks to our wonderful STARS team, Ben’s hard work and determination and his supportive family and community, Ben was able to return home to Barcaldine to spend Christmas. A particular thank you to Bette-Anne who escorted Ben on his trip home to ensure his ongoing care at Barcaldine Hospital. Ben’s story was recently featured in Queensland Country Life and on Metro North’s Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts. Well done to everyone involved in caring for Ben during his time at STARS.

Severe weather events

Queensland continued to experience severe weather events over the Christmas and New Year period with heatwaves, storms, heavy rainfall, and flooding. If you or your family were affected by these events, please know that you can reach out for assistance from Metro North’s wellbeing support services.

There will no doubt be more weather events during January. If you need to access updates on heatwaves, storms, and flooding in your area, download the BOM alerts app on your phone and turn on the warning notifications.

For general information about preparing your home and family for extreme weather and natural disaster events, visit Get Ready Queensland.

Metro North Health has created an extranet site to keep staff across our emergency and disaster response activities. The site also includes links to useful resources.

COVID-19/Acute respiratory illness

STARS currently have a number of patients and staff off with COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses. We are monitoring the situation closely but please stay vigilant with environmental cleaning, good hand hygiene, and wearing PPE.

Just a reminder to:

• Wear masks in clinical areas, in line with PPE guidelines.
• Please ensure all staff are bare below the elbow at all times in clinical areas.
• Move meetings to Teams where practicable, and if face-to- face meetings are required then masks should be worn.
• Encourage visitors to wear masks, practice good hand hygiene, and not to visit patients when unwell.
• Please DO NOT come to work if you are feeling unwell, even if you have tested negative on a RAT. Let your line manager know if you’re off sick as soon as possible and register your leave via the Smart Leave form on MyHR.
• Ensure flu and COVID-19 vaccinations and annual fit testing are up to date.
• If you do test positive to COVID-19 please fill out the Notification of new COVID-19 positive staff form.

SERA snapshot

I wanted to share the amazing work of the STARS Education and Research Alliance (SERA) over the past year. They currently have 57 active research projects in STARS and last year published over 150 articles and won 27 institutional awards. SERA also continues to have great success with funding applications with more than $30M and $20M awarded in 2022 and 2023, respectively. To see more of their achievements in 2023, see the full snapshot here. I look forward to bringing you more of SERA’s successes during the year.

Short notice accreditation

The majority of Metro North facilities and directorates have now undergone short notice accreditation, with STARS and the RBWH still to be assessed. We will receive notification on Thursday or Friday the week prior to accreditation. When it is STARS turn, staff will be informed via an email to all staff. I will also hold special Staff Forums for both managers and the entire staff group beforehand to provide people with the opportunity to seek any clarifications or ask questions. Short notice accreditation provides us with a great opportunity to demonstrate the amazing work we do each and every day for our patients at STARS.

Farewell to Tyler Cleary

I wish to extend my sincere thanks to Tyler Cleary who has acted in the role of Cultural Capability Officer at STARS, over the last couple of months. Ty has been a valued and exceptional member of the STARS team, identifying and extending cultural support to patients who require it. His passion to improve health equity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients is inspirational. Ty is returning to his substantive role as a Senior Health Worker at Caboolture and I wish him all the best in the future.

Kind regards

Dale.