There has been some significant updates to put Victoria into Stage 3 as confirmed by Premier Daniel Andrews. These stage 3 restrictions will come into effect for the state on Monday night with significant fines for those who choose to not follow. No gatherings of more than 2 people other than those in your household. Playgrounds, skate parks and outdoor gyms will also close. There are only 4 reasons for us to leave home and they are to get medical care, go to work, for daily exercise and to go and buy the things you need when you need them.
Specific to Healthcare Workers please see below:
Supporting healthcare workers
It’s everyone’s responsibility to support essential healthcare workers – such as doctors and nurses – to stay at work during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
Healthcare workers may need extra help to ensure their children have care so they can work during this period.
Where possible, partners of essential healthcare workers – who are not healthcare workers themselves – should support them to continue working by taking care of children.
Older people – such as grandparents – and other at-risk groups should not be engaged as carers to reduce their risk of infection.
Victoria has expanded its dedicated contact tracing services. From 26 March messages to close contacts are sent via a new platform called Whispr, which requires the person to respond back to the contact tracing team confirming they are isolating at home.
Any healthcare or residential aged care worker with a fever or respiratory symptoms must be tested.
Additional personal protective equipment and testing equipment are due to arrive in the coming weeks.
Developments in the outbreak
Doctors are encouraged to remind all patients that they should stay at home unless going to medical appointments or performing essential tasks.
Doctors, nurses, midwives and mental health professionals can deliver temporary Medicare Benefits Schedule and Department of Veterans’ Affairs items via telehealth, provided those services are bulk billed.
If testing health care workers, doctors are reminded to clearly mark pathology slips with ‘HCW’ to ensure the swabs can be easily identified for priority testing.
Doctors are reminded to ensure they include a mobile contact number on pathology slips for patients who have been tested.
Physical (social) distancing measures should be consistently applied, if at all possible, including in clinical settings. The rule of 1 person for every 4 square metres must be maintained to ensure a safe physical distance.
Please go to https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-update for all the updates relating to other areas and sectors.
