Operations Bulletin – 6 July

Celebrating NAIDOC Week at Western Health

To celebrate NAIDOC Week (3–10 July), the Wilim Berrbang Aboriginal Health Unit is holding a stall at Sunshine Hospital (outside First Response Pharmacy) today from 10am-12pm, raising funds to support the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and the Victorian Aboriginal Funeral Service. If you’re based at Sunshine Hospital today, drop by and show your support for the two foundations. Anyone who makes a donation will receive a NAIDOC 2022 cookie in return for your generous support.

National NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia in the first week of July each year to celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC Week is an opportunity for all Australians to learn about First Nations cultures and histories and participate in celebrations of the oldest, continuous living cultures on earth.

COVID-19 update

Hospital admissions related to COVID-19 are on the rise again, with health services in Queensland, New South Wales and a number of Melbourne hospitals seeing steady increases over the past week. The COVID-19 sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5 are rapidly becoming the dominant strains and may evade natural and vaccine immunity more than other strains. There are signs that another wave of cases may peak in August, so it’s timely to reinforce our existing measures that are in place to protect ourselves and each other from COVID and influenza:

1. Mask mandates continue, with N95 masks being compulsory in clinical areas and surgical masks being mandatory in shared non-clinical areas
2. Don’t come to work if you have COVID-19 or flu symptoms
3. Avoid face-to-face meetings whenever possible. If face-to-face meetings are required, wear masks at all times, avoid eating and drinking in meetings and reconsider the number of people who need to be in the room. Information on COVID-safe education, training and research can be found here
4. Socially distance from each other whenever possible
5. When not at work, the Chief Health Officer recommends you wear masks at indoor venues and when it’s not possible to socially distance.

Mandatory flu vaccination deadline fast approaching

Considering the reported increase in influenza cases in our community it is pleasing to see that Seventy-five per cent of Western Health staff have now received their annual influenza vaccination. Category A and B healthcare workers (current and newly commencing) are required to be vaccinated against seasonal influenza by 15 August 2022, so if you’re not yet vaccinated, please do make it a priority. Details on how to access flu vaccination can be found here.

If you have received your flu vaccination at a site other than Western Health, please complete this Redcap survey and either attach your immunisation statement from Medicare Online (myGov) or provide consent to allow Western Health to access your AIR record.

Ensuring a timely and patient-centred approach to cross campus specialty consults

As each of you would be aware a number of our patients will require specialty medicine consults as part of their clinical care plan; however, some clinical specialties do not have a daily clinical presence at all of our sites. In these instances, could I please ask that Speciality Unit Heads facilitate these referrals to enable a senior medical staff member or registrar from their unit to review the patient at the relevant site – this process will mitigate patients being transferred to another site for the medical consults/reviews.

If any clinician is facing challenges arranging a timely review for a patient, please do not hesitate to escalate any issues via your Unit Head or Operations Manager, the relevant Clinical Service Director, or the Office of the Chief Medical Officer.

I will continue to keep you updated via this weekly Operations Bulletin.

Regards,

John
Executive Director Operations (Acting)