Tami Photinos, Executive Director, The Prince Charles Hospital

Earlier this week, we transitioned to Tier 0 which indicates mild community transmission and a return to more business-as-usual activity. Great news!

This is a momentous milestone for all of us, having spent almost three years navigating our way through the constant changes and challenges of the pandemic. There has been a lot of blood, sweat and tears along the way, and we have all had to go above and beyond to make sure we could adapt to the many changes we were presented with, while continuing to care for our patients. Kudos and thanks go to the entire team at TPCH for your flexibility, teamwork, resilience and above all, commitment. Through this period, TPCH has constantly stepped up to every challenge and worked together as a team to ensure that our patients and staff were well cared for and supported. Well done everyone! We appreciate all you have done.

Also this week, it was announced that next Thursday 22 September will be a national public holiday to honour the late Queen Elizabeth II. With the further advice that planned care will go ahead, we are currently working across service lines to support the continuation of care where possible.

Executive walkaround

This week, I had the opportunity to visit our Adult Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Centre and Heart Lung Outpatients. I am pleased to advise that the Adult CF Unit re-opened this week after 20 months as a COVID care ward, welcoming back its usual CF patient cohort as well as some other medical patients to assist with bed capacity issues.

We met with the CF leadership team who showed us around the unit which included a very busy outpatient clinic. The CF Unit is currently planning for the construction of two additional outpatient rooms to support their growing demand. I’d also like to commend the gardeners for their good work in re-mulching the CF unit’s front garden. The bush turkeys certainly like it, although we ask you to please not feed them.

My visit to Heart Lung Outpatients provided the chance to meet and speak with different teams which included medical, nursing and administration staff. With the change to Tier 0, the staff are looking forward to seeing more patients face-to-face, so we can expect to see this already busy department, get even busier delivering high quality care to our patients.

Thanks to the staff for accommodating the visit, your time is appreciated. As a side, I also appreciated the colourful shoes worn by cardiologist, Dr Wandy Chan. Something to brighten the day!

FAST FACTS

This week, we will share some fast facts about TPCH Emergency Departments (ED).

Did you know?

• TPCH Adult and Children’s Emergency Departments have a team of approximately 400 staff across all disciplines who work together to provide high quality emergency care to around 120,000 patients every year.
• Last month, Adult and Children’s ED staff:
  – Saw 9,546 patients (Adult – 6,273 : Children’s 3,273) 
  – Saw 47 Cat 1 patients and 1,539 Cat 2 patients
• Non-cardiac chest pain has been one of the most common diagnosis for adult patients presenting to the ED this year so far. For children, the most common has been viral infection.
• That 6,662 patients over the age of 80 presented to the Adult ED between January and August this year, making them the most common age group seen.
• Metro North has a Virtual ED which allows patients to access emergency medical care via a virtual face-to-face consultation with an emergency doctor and nurse. The Metro North Virtual ED is available via a dedicated portal on the Metro North Health internet site at: Virtual Emergency Department (ED) – Metro North Health

These busy teams do an excellent job in delivering high quality emergency care to our community. Well done!

Staff Profile

This week, we will profile TPCH’s new Clinical Director Paediatrics, Dr Peter Stevenson. Peter brings extensive experience in general paediatrics, neonatology and medical leadership to his new role at TPCH. Having most recently been the Acting Director Medical Services for Wide Bay South Hospital and Health Service, Peter has held a substantive appointment as Director of Paediatrics at Hervey Bay Hospital since 2013. Prior to joining Hervey Bay in 2011 as a paediatrician, he worked as a neonatologist in St John of God, Subiaco, Perth for three years following the completion of his training in neonatology and general paediatrics in Brisbane.

Peter is very excited about supporting the planned expansion of paediatric services at TPCH which will incorporate general paediatric and specialist paediatric services. He is looking forward to working with the dedicated and passionate clinicians within the paediatric and paediatric emergency teams to develop a unique model of collaborative care between Metro North Paediatric Services and Children’s Health Queensland that will benefit the children of Brisbane and Queensland.

Peter is committed to developing a multidisciplinary paediatric centre of excellence that focuses on the needs of children and their families.

When not at work, Peter spends what little spare time he has with his four-year old son. As his son gets older, he hopes to enjoy some fishing, dining out, cycling and getting some more sleep. The joys of being a dad!

New Child Protection training live today

As advised in this week’s Metro North Executive message, Metro North has just launched a revised online child protection training program called Supporting all Families Everyday (SaFE) V2 which is mandatory for all staff to complete.

The updated SaFE V2 training program, which replaces the original SaFE training, provides staff with the vital tools to recognise risk factors for abuse and neglect, and respond appropriately to any suspicions that a child is in need of protection. SaFE V2 acknowledges that child protection is everybody’s responsibility and we each play a part in contributing to a child safe organisation.

Staff are required to complete one of the program’s three modules – non-clinical, clinical and clinical (high risk child protection areas) according to their role and place of employment, please refer to the Managers Guide to Child Protection Education.

All modules incorporate cultural capability and trauma informed care practices, and are comparable to original training in terms of completion time. SaFE V2 is now available on TMS and I encourage staff to log in and complete this important training as soon as they can.

Shout out

This week’s shout out goes to TPCH’s Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) which finishes up next Thursday 22 September. The EOC team has been pivotal in supporting and managing our hospital’s COVID-19 response for almost the last three years – a huge undertaking. This team was responsible for keeping TPCH staff up to date with current COVID-19 guidelines, visitor restrictions, exemptions, lockdowns, Tier responses, infection control advice, isolation/quarantine criteria, vaccinations, fit testing, fever clinic and COVID-19 patient management, and the list goes on!!

This team has been an unwavering source of knowledge, advice and support to all staff at TPCH during what has been a very unpredictable period, and I commend each of them on their excellent work. Our thanks goes to Tanya Mountford, Lyn Bridge, Dr Alex Chaudhuri, Janice Geary, Bradley Maunder and Samantha Atkins – an awesome team!  Well done!

Today’s quote

“The person not reaching the top is no less a success than the one who achieved it, if they both sweated blood, sweat and tears and overcame obstacles and fears. The failure to be perfect does not mean you’re not a success.”- Fran Tarkenton

Tami Photinos
Executive Director