SWAN Hill District Health (SHDH) chief executive officer Peter Abraham says elective surgery will be ramped up in the coming week as COVID becomes part of the hospital’s everyday operation.
Mr Abraham said elective surgery should be close to normal next week, with Swan Hill less impacted by the code brown shutdown announced on January 18 that hit metropolitan hospitals and six larger regional centres.
He said the hospital had managed to create good enough systems, processes and infection control that it would soon become an official stream site.
Mr Abraham said it would lead to more numbers in the hospital, but they were ready to manage that challenge.
“Swan Hill did not enact a full code brown, and so we were still providing elective surgeries throughout with emergency category one elective surgeries three days a week,” Mr Abraham said.
“We’ve ramped that up this week to category two urgent and non-urgent, five days a week and then will increase to full capacity of the next two weeks.
“The real pressure has been workforce availability, but we’re balancing that pretty well.”
While Mr Abraham said there had been a recent increase in COVID-19 numbers in the Swan Hill local government area, about half of which were coming from the hospital’s catchment area.
He said staff found that the numbers of new cases matched the numbers who overcame their illness.
As of yesterday afternoon, there were 42 new active cases in the Swan Hill LGA with 175 active cases in the area. This includes 19 new cases in the area covered by the 3585 postcode, with 81 active cases.
“We’re coping well with the virtual care-at-home for those designated at risk in the community,” Mr Abraham said.
“Others are being monitored with a daily SMS program run from Bendigo, and locally there are 12 people on the Swan Hill hospital’s books, mostly managed at home.
“There were a few occasions when patients were admitted to stay at the hospital.”
There are no current outbreaks in aged care facilities managed by SHDH, and while the Federal Government recently announced the placement of 1700 ADF personnel to support aged care facilities, this will not impact Swan Hill.
Mr Abraham said there was a good supply of rapid antigen tests (RATs) at SHDH, with access for staff and marginalised communities, as well as around 50 handed out a day for testing.
“It’s a pretty good plague of RATs and we’re ticking along okay,” he said.
“COVID-19 has become part of what we do each day.”
Free RATs have been made available through schools for use by all students and staff from the start this school term, as well as for children aged three to five attending early childhood education services.
COVID-19 tests purchased for work-related purposes have now become tax-deductible.
