Additional specialist staff will be deployed to Northern Hospital in a bid to help ease the impact of the latest COVID wave on the healthcare system.
The specialist staff members, including Offload nurses to help ambulances offload patients quicker, triage doctors and discharge co-ordinators will be deployed by the state government to 12 major hospitals, including Northern Hospital.
These staff will work together to help offload, assess and treat patients faster and help progress patients more efficiently through their care journey, the government said.
The new specialist staff come as Victoria moved into stage three of the health system winter response, which the government said would unlock additional levers to manage the pressure on the health system, including the use of private hospital capacity to support public patients and converting more hospitals to tier one streaming services – giving Ambulance Victoria more local options to transport COVID positive patients.
Since June 22, there has been a 99 per cent increase in Victorians in hospital with COVID-19, a 60 per cent increase in ICU admissions due to COVID-19 and a 47 per cent increase in workforce furlough, according to government data.
In the first week of July alone, there was a cumulative absence of more than 10,000 staff across the system.
Premier Daniel Andrews said healthcare systems around the world were under pressure as we battle new COVID variants.
“Giving our nurses and doctors an extra pair of hands and making improvements that help patients flow through our emergency departments faster will ensure Victorians get the care they need faster as Australia faces a difficult winter,” he said.
