THEN
Excerpt
from a Statement
from Lynne Weir, Acting Chief Executive Northern NSW Local Health
District, 23 September 2021:
In
our District, there are currently sufficient Intensive Care beds
across our three major hospitals in Grafton, Lismore and Tweed, with
plans in place to surge staffing and intensive care capacity, if and
when required, our networked hospital system ensures patients can be
transferred or redirected to other hospitals where necessary,
including private hospitals.
Throughout
the early stages of the pandemic, we sourced additional equipment,
including ventilators, and we regularly review our stocks and supply
chains of resources, including PPE and pharmacy items, to ensure
adequate supplies.
From
the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Northern NSW Local Health
District has been actively increasing its staffing and upskilling its
workforce in readiness to care for COVID-19 patients in our region.
Additional
training programs were developed for nurses, midwives, and allied
health staff, with more than 265 staff attending surge training in
Intensive Care, Emergency and Immunisation specialties to provide
additional capacity to care for patients.
Lismore
Base Hospital is the primary receiving hospital for COVID-19 cases
requiring hospitalisation in the District, having recently undergone
significant redevelopment to provide a new Emergency Department and
Intensive Care Unit, as well as other general hospital wards. These
refurbishments have also delivered more single room capacity across
the facility. Our other major hospitals in the District also have
trained staff and the necessary equipment to cater for COVID patients
if required as the pandemic evolves.
Between
mid-2012 and mid-2021, NNSWLHD increased its workforce by an
additional 1,219 FTE staff - an increase of 32.3 per cent including
211 more doctors 461 more nurses and midwives and 141 more allied
health staff.
Message received by a registered nurse in NSW on 13 December 2021:
 |
| via @vintage_nurse |
Northern
NSW Local Health District,
media
release
excerpt, 16 October 2021:
Visiting
restrictions at hospitals across Northern NSW Local Health District
are being eased slightly to allow visitors back into health
facilities in a staged approach.
A
patient may have one visitor once a day for one hour, between the
hours of 1pm and 6pm.
Visitors
must be at least 12 years of age, and must have be fully vaccinated
with two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Visitors
will need to carry evidence of their vaccination status on entry to
the health facility, and must wear a surgical mask while on site.
Acting
Chief Executive, Northern NSW Local Health District, Lynne Weir said
people should continue to keep up to date with contact tracing
alerts, and be vigilant against any symptoms of COVID-19 so they do
not attend a health facility if they feel unwell.
“People
must not visit if they have any COVID-19 symptoms, are a close
contact of a confirmed case (or are within their isolation period),
live in a household with a person who is currently isolating, or if
they are waiting for a COVID-19 test result,” Ms Weir said.
“People
also must not visit if they have been to case locations in NSW,
interstate affected areas or New Zealand in the past 14 days.”
NOW
The
Guardian,
7 January 2022:
One
of New South Wales’ major regional hospitals had to source its own
triage tent, is sending Covid tests six hours away due to a lack of
space for its own diagnosis machine, and has had positive patients
wait 30 hours to be transferred to a designated hospital for those
with the virus.
Doctors
at the Tweed hospital, which is 1km from the Queensland border in
northern NSW and serves a hinterland that includes Byron Bay, are
even donning personal protective equipment to drive home, in their
own cars, asymptomatic Covid-positive patients because taxis won’t
take them.
Kristin
Ryan-Agnew, president of the local branch of the Nurses and Midwives
Association and a senior nurse at the hospital, said local Covid
cases were tripling daily, much faster than the 5o% growth in new
cases reported for NSW as a whole on Wednesday.
As
a result of increased presentations to Tweed’s emergency
department, nurses were doing “double shifts every day” with one
day off before resuming the toil. “They’re going to fall over in
a screaming heap,” she said. “They will not be able to manage.”
Eighteen
staff, many of them senior, have resigned since December out of a
roster of about 150, citing burnout and the better conditions offered
over the border.
Queensland
offers $1,800 a year for nurses’ education, a Covid bonus – both
absent in NSW – and higher wages, Ryan-Agnew said.
“They were
really top-notch, really good quality staff, and they can walk up to
the Gold Coast and they’ll just completely snaffle them.”
As
Guardian Australia reported on Wednesday, nurses at Lismore Base
hospital – the destination for Tweed’s Covid patients needing
treatment – are also struggling to cope with a surge in medical
needs.
The
Tweed hospital is buckling under spiking demand for care and a lack
of trained staff and appropriate equipment. A senior manager, for
instance, had to phone around themselves and then purchase the triage
tent prior to Christmas after months of pleading to the health
department, Ryan-Agnew said.
The
tent, though, remains far from adequate, with no toilet, forcing
potentially Covid-positive patients – and anyone waiting for PCR
testing to cross the border – to traipse through the main hospital
lobby.
“You
can have people with heart conditions, sick kids, elderly, frail, all
sitting there waiting to be seen, and you’ve got a potential Covid
patient walking through the waiting room,” Ryan-Agnew said.
Patients
with chest and severe abdominal pain, septic children and adults
should be in beds not a tent without nursing care, staff said.
Earlier this week, one Covid patient had to wait 17 hours before
being transferred to Lismore, while another patient had to wait 30
hours before being moved on Wednesday.
The
nurse manager shares office space and air-conditioning with two beds
set aside for Covid patients with no air-locked space for changing
PPE.
“We
have bottles of hand sanitiser sitting on top of overflowing bins,
flapping Covid tent flaps compromising PPE,” another staff member,
who requested anonymity, said.
“We
also continue to struggle getting adequate PPE and supplies, certain
masks run out, no hair coverings and no disposable blood pressure
cuffs.”
 |
The triage tent sourced by a senior manager at Tweed hospital.
Photograph: Supplied |
Read
the full story here.
The Guardian, 8 January 2022:
Staff
at the hospital serving tourist mecca Byron Bay in northern New South
Wales say the facility is under “extreme strain”, with
Covid-positive patients left in bays behind curtains and one patient
waiting 45 hours to be transported to the region’s designated Covid
hospital.
As
many as 100 people a day are arriving at the Byron Central hospital,
stretching staff already depleted by Covid-forced absences. The Byron
area had a double-vaccination rate of about 85% as of 20 December,
one of the lowest in NSW.
Healthcare
workers collecting information from the public at a Covid testing
site in Sydney
The
hospital’s single isolation room was taken up by one Covid patient
for almost two days earlier this week before being transported. “We
are constantly being crippled by a lack of transfer options” with
ambulances often unavailable because of their own shortages, a senior
staffer who requested anonymity said.
“We
have a positive pressure room also that is being used as an isolation
room and another room which we can close an actual door on,” the
hospital worker said. “These are often all taken up, so we have
Covid-positive patients in bays behind curtains because we can’t
get people to where they need to be in a timely manner.”
As
reported this week by Guardian Australia, northern NSW hospitals are
under increasing strain at the designated Covid hospital at Lismore
and at the bigger Tweed hospital near the border with Queensland.
Byron’s
challenges are made worse by the loss of medical staff who have
refused the government’s Covid vaccination mandate, and its
proximity to communities with relatively large anti-vaccination
support.
The
region also has a relatively high number of cases per 1,000 people,
with another 1,154 Covid cases in northern NSW in the latest 24-hour
reporting period.
Northern
NSW Local Health District website:
Hospital
Visitors: Changes and Restrictions
Visitor
restrictions are in place to protect patients, staff and visitors at
our hospitals and health facilities.
Visitors
are now restricted at all hospitals and health facilities in Northern
NSW.
Exemptions
will be considered on a case by case basis for compassionate or
extenuating circumstances, for example in the case of palliative
care.
Women
accessing birthing services can continue to nominate one support
person (participant in care) during her labour, birth and post-birth.
For
outpatient appointments and community services, telehealth
appointments are being utilised where possible.
All
patients and visitors are required to wear a mask when entering a
health facility.
As
a precautionary measure ALL visitors will be screened on entry and
will be required to check in using the QR code and provide evidence
of their COVID-19 vaccination.
You
will also be asked:
Do
you have any COVID-19 symptoms?
Have
you been identified as a close contact of a COVID-19 case in the past
14 days?
Have
you returned from overseas in the past 14 days?
If
you answer yes to any of these questions, you will not be permitted
to enter the facility.
