I'm pleased to say that Redcliffe Hospital Giving Day was a huge success again this year.

Earlier this week, I was pleased to join our maternity team as we thanked the donors and contributors who have made our new Jacaranda Suite possible. The Jacaranda Suite is a purpose-designed room in the maternity ward for women and families experiencing pregnancy loss, stillbirth, or needing extra support and care during their time with us.

Earlier this week, I was pleased to join our maternity team as we thanked the donors and contributors who have made our new Jacaranda Suite possible. The Jacaranda Suite is a purpose-designed room in the maternity ward for women and families experiencing pregnancy loss, stillbirth, or needing extra support and care during their time with us.

We began the week with mentions in the media about the AMA's Queensland Resident Hospital Health Check. The Health Check is an annual survey undertaken of 12 hospitals (including RBWH, TPCH, and Caboolture), with ratings for various aspects of working conditions for junior doctors.

Earlier this week, we presented this year's Redcliffe Hospital's Staff Excellence Awards.

We marked two big milestones this week in our progression back to business as usual. After more than two years of activation, the hospital's Emergency Operations Centre stood down this week. This stand-down phase was long-planned and mirrored what has happened at a Metro North level and across other facilities.

We've heard a lot recently about how we're all heading back to business as usual (BAU) after stepping back from our COVID and Influenza response. Speaking at our Managers Forum yesterday, our Director of Safety and Quality, Grant Carey-Ide, challenged us all to do something better - a transition to business better than usual (BBTU). In the coming weeks, expect to hear more about this idea - as we shift our focus from COVID and Influenza back squarely onto our safety and quality agenda.

Redcliffe Hospital has always enjoyed a strong connection with our local community. That connection is something we're working hard to protect and maintain.

We're now through the worst of the winter months. The number of COVID-positive patients we're caring for has fallen, and they're now being cared for in our single negative flow and negative pressure rooms on 6 East. A few weeks ago, around 90 staff could not attend work each day because of COVID reasons - it's now only a handful each day.

We had some good news this week. After working our way through another COVID peak and flu season, we've now been able to move back to Tier 2 of our COVID and Influenza Response Plan and back to 'moderate' level PPE.

Redcliffe Hospital's Clinical Council continues to play an essential and influential role in our hospital's leadership. At this month's meeting, there were several important changes that we'd like to share with everyone.

We're now well into the third year of our COVID-19 response and it continues to demand agility and flexibility from us all. It's been a marathon effort, and we're still not at the finish line. In response to this most recent wave, we postponed non-essential activities to focus on acute patient care. This has worked well, but there are some things that should never be postponed - like looking after our health and wellbeing.

As you may have seen on the coffee cups at Zouki or from the cupcakes Barb Williams has been handing out - it's DonateLife Week.

Metro North Health and Redcliffe Hospital introduced some changes this week to further strengthen our Tier 3 COVID-19 and influenza response. As part of this, we'll be postponing non-urgent planned care and non-essential meetings and training for the next four weeks. The impact of COVID-19 and flu on clinical demand and our hospital workforce continues to be significant. These changes will help us better support emergency and acute patient care.

Today I attended a Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) presentation around emergency surgery. This presentation compared Redcliffe Hospital with others in Queensland Health. I was again struck by how effective our surgical service is - especially considering the high volume of emergency surgery performed here.

I'm pleased to announce that nominations are now open for this year's Redcliffe Hospital Staff Excellence Awards.

This afternoon Metro North and Redcliffe Hospital stood back up to a Tier 3 of our COVID-19 and Influenza Response Plan 2022. I encourage everyone to read this afternoon’s Health Incident Controller’s message, which talks more about the reasons behind this change.

Thank you to everyone who received their free flu vaccination and played their part in protecting themselves, each other, and our patients this winter.

We continue to work our way through a very busy period. Thank you to everyone working together to care for our patients and support each other.

We've had some amazing news this week. The Queensland State Budget was delivered on Tuesday, and it included a considerable investment in hospitals and healthcare across Queensland.

This week, we're making another big and positive change around our COVID-19 response.

Many of you will have heard the sad news that our colleague, Andrew Standfast, passed away recently after a short and courageous health battle.

Emergency Department building site

We've had some more big changes this week to our COVID-19 response.

Since we established our philanthropic partnership with the RBWH Foundation, Raise it for Redcliffe Hospital has continued to grow in its fundraising success and in bringing our hospital and community closer together.

Be brave. Make change. That's the theme for National Reconciliation Week this year.

This afternoon there have been some changes to the rules around masks for staff.

As many of you may know, Louise Oriti has been away on leave this week, and I've been the Acting Executive Director while she's away. Louise will be back on Monday. During my week in the Executive Director's chair, it's been great to see how everyone has worked together.

Our midwives and nurses are truly wonderful people and belong to two great and proud professions. We celebrated them all this week for International Day of the Midwife and International Nurses Day.

Thank you to everyone who has been supporting clinical care and patient flow. Community need and demand for our services are high. I am seeing impressive levels of synergy between clinical services and individuals across the organisation, and this is really supporting problem-solving and transfers of patient care.

This year's staff flu vaccination campaign is off to a flying start. On the first day of this year's campaign, around a quarter of Redcliffe Hospital staff rolled up their sleeves to be vaccinated against the flu.

For two years or more now, we've all played important roles in how our hospital and health service has responded to COVID-19. As we move into this new era of healthcare, where COVID will be a constant, we all need to play a part in designing how we will deliver that care.

Like all hospitals in Metro North, we started the week in a challenging position. For many clinical areas, it's been a long and busy week. As we head into the Easter long weekend, many areas of our hospital remain under pressure too.

The first few days of this week were very busy with a high volume of patients presenting to the Emergency Department. Throughout the week, I've seen exceptional teamwork at all levels across the organisation. I want to commend the clinical leaders and staff of all disciplines for how everyone collaborated to enhance models of care and flow to meet the needs of our patients. This level of cooperation and synergy meant that we only needed to be on a Code Yellow for part of Wednesday.

You may not have noticed it, but there was a big change at Redcliffe Hospital over the weekend. The leadership, management, and governance of Patient Support Services, Medical Imaging, Security, and Food Services have all now shifted from Metro North to Redcliffe Hospital.

With COVID-19 now widespread throughout our community, it should not surprise anyone that we continue to see positive cases among our patients and staff.

As expected, our COVID-19 response has continued to evolve and change. On Wednesday morning, Redcliffe Hospital and Metro North Health stepped up to tier three of our COVID-19 response plan

It's been another busy week for Redcliffe Hospital, with the Emergency Department and many wards and services under pressure. Thank you to everyone who has worked together to meet this challenge.

I'm pleased to say that things are looking a lot more positive than they were at this time last week.

A lot has been going on this week, and throughout, we’ve remained focused on the safety of our patients, staff, and community.

Last year, 45% of Redcliffe Hospital staff participated in the Have Your Say Staff Survey. The way that so many people engaged with the survey process said a lot about everyone’s willingness to help make Redcliffe Hospital a truly great place to work.

Please see below the following changes occurring in relation to Senior Workforce changes at Redcliffe Hospital.

The weekend has been a dramatic and stressful one for our entire community. Many of our hospital team have also been personally impacted by the severe weather over the weekend. While the rain has stopped here at Redcliffe, we remain on a Code Brown at Redcliffe Hospital and across Metro North Health.

Heavy rain is expected to continue through today and possibly into tomorrow. This is causing flooding in our area, including around access roads to Redcliffe Hospital.

All staff are advised of a change in the Critical Care, Women’s and Children’s (CCWC) service line leadership at Redcliffe Hospital. Please join me in welcoming Dr Kim Hansen to the position of CCWC’s Medical Director. Effective tomorrow, Dr Hansen will be working alongside Nursing Director Julie Lahey as the leadership team for the CCWC service line. Dr Hansen will also join Redcliffe as an SMO in the Emergency Department.

Our emergency department is one of the busiest in Queensland, currently providing our community with a combined adult and paediatric service. In the next couple of weeks, work will start on an upgrade to our emergency department to provide a dedicated and separate paediatric section.

I've had the opportunity to really consider what constitutes good care and great care over the past few weeks. You may know that my father has had dementia. Caring for him took a huge collaborative effort from my mother, carers, my three brothers, and other family members. After several falls and increasing care demands, residential care became inevitable. He was in there around ten days before passing.

Thank you all for your hard work and support of our health services at this time. Yesterday, our Minister for Health and Queensland's Chief Health Officer presented their daily press conference here at Redcliffe Hospital. While at our campus, they took the opportunity to visit both the Emergency Department and the Intensive Care Unit (wearing the appropriate PPE). They used this time to check in with our senior clinicians and get some valuable on the ground feedback on how services are working and supporting COVID activity.

Thank you for all your hard work at this time. Louise has asked me to provide you with a brief update. As with all hospitals in our health service we are now experiencing increasing numbers of new COVID cases. Consistent with our planning and preparation, the majority of these cases are being treated within our two dedicated wards and our Intensive Care Unit. Today Metro North is moving to Tier 4 of the COVID-19 Response Plan. This means we will be actioning our plans to further expand our Emergency Department inpatient and ICU capacity.