Chief Executive COVID-19 Update: 25 August

As of today, we have:

• No COVID-19 positive inpatients
• No employees with COVID-19
• 87 employees in precautionary quarantine (61 as a result of the Royal Melbourne Hospital exposure)

In this update, we cover:

• Victoria moves to COVID Peak rating
• Jeroen Weimar speaks at our Employee Forum
• New screening clinic and vaccination sites
• 500,000 vaccinations delivered
• PPE requirements for Code Blue response
• Our Employee COVID-19 Surveillance Testing Program
• Loulou, Monash Health Hand Hygiene Auditor
• Wear It Purple Day – put on your purple gear and show support for LGBTI+ youth
• STAR winner Ben saw something on his lunch break he couldn’t ignore

• Employees take the lead in the Walk for Monash Children’s Hospital
• Get to know our Pharmacy team assisting in the vaccine rollout
• Expansion of vaccine availability
• Permitted workers and childcare
• Cancelling booked leave
• Have your say about UKG Dimensions
• Looking after yourself

As you will have read in my alert yesterday, we have enacted the COVID Peak guidance, established by the Department of Health, in response to the current level of risk of COVID-19 transmission in the community.

This Delta outbreak is moving rapidly, and its evolving nature means we must move to keep our health service protected and prevent further pressure on Victoria’s health system.

I urge you to read the detailed alert thoroughly and understand what it means for you and your role. If you have any questions, please reach out to your manager for advice and support.

Enacting these changes requires effort from all of us, and I want to express my sincere thanks for your resilience and adherence to these important precautions during challenging times.

As we have seen in recent days at the Royal Melbourne and Goulburn Valley Health, COVID-19 in a health service can significantly impact its ability to provide care, due to the need to furlough large numbers of health care workers.

If you have worked at or visited Royal Melbourne Hospital or Goulburn Valley Health in the past 14 days (or live with someone who does), you must not attend work at Monash Health. Please have a COVID-19 test as soon as possible and isolate. Then, contact the Monash Health Employee Hotline on (03) 9594 5815.

COVID-19 cases will inevitably come into contact with our health service as well. This is why we must follow our processes to reduce the risk and the impact on our teams, community, and ourselves.

Jeroen Weimar at employee forum
Yesterday we were joined at our employee forum by the Victorian Department of Health’s COVID-19 Response Commander, Jeroen Weimar, for an insightful discussion on the State’s COVID-19 response and current outbreak.

Over 1,000 team members tuned in as Jeroen expressed his concern for how the Delta variant moves through the community, describing the current situation, including the latest outbreaks in Shepparton and at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, as nail-biting.

Jeroen thanked everyone at Monash Health for their work over the past 18 months, noting that all his interactions with our organisation have been fantastic, including when he received his first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine at the Cranbourne Turf Club earlier this year.

He also called out the South East Public Health Unit and the work of Professor Rhonda Stuart and her team, for closing in the outbreaks in St Kilda and the CBD over the past few weeks through strong engagement with the community.

When asked what he believed the biggest challenge was for the next few weeks, Jeroen explained that ensuring compliance from understandably restless Victorians was a key focus for his team.

As for the future of our current lockdown, he reaffirmed what we already know to be true – there’s an absolute determination by everyone to get out of lockdown as quickly and safely as we can, and that vaccination is the best way to do this.

New screening clinic and vaccination sites
In the past week, the Monash Health South East Public Health Unit has continued to respond to the COVID-19 threat, with the opening of ‘pop-up’ screening and vaccination clinics in St Kilda and a new drive-through vaccination clinic at Sandown Racecourse in Springvale.

I want to thank everyone who contributed to getting these up and running in a matter of hours.

500,000 vaccinations delivered
We are forging ahead with our vaccination effort and, together with our SEPHU partners, we have now reached the milestone of 500,000 vaccinations delivered.

It’s telling that only one of the people in hospital with COVID-19 right now in Victoria has had one shot of AstraZeneca. All the rest are unvaccinated.

When Jeroen and I spoke yesterday, we responded to questions about the potential of mandatory vaccination. He felt that, eventually, policy makers would use every lever available to them to increase vaccination rates, leading us closer to a normal lifestyle. I agree that the day of mandatory vaccination is getting closer.

If you are waiting to get vaccinated, I encourage you to move quickly. The best vaccine is the one in your arm.

Thank you.

Andrew Stripp
Chief Executive

Key messages

PPE requirements for Code Blue response
Our current PPE requirements for Code Blue response can be accessed here. Please take some time to refresh your knowledge of these requirements.

The current direction is that you are required to apply Tier 3 PPE when attending a Code Blue on a COVID positive or SCOVID patient.

For patients who are not COVID positive or not suspected to have COVID, standard precautions apply.

This is based on zero COVID positive inpatients at Monash Health, low community transmission in our catchment, robust screening processes for emergency admissions and COVID-19 testing for elective medical and surgical admissions. These make the likelihood of undiagnosed COVID-19 within the health service low.  We are monitoring the situation closely, and any change in risk will trigger a review and likely escalation of the PPE requirements.

While the risk of undiagnosed COVID-19 in the health service is low, clinical staff calling or attending a Code Blue must always consider the cause for deterioration.

If deterioration is respiratory in nature or the patient has recently developed COVID-19 symptoms, treat as SCOVID and increase your PPE tier to Tier 3.

Employee COVID-19 Surveillance Testing Program
To help protect the wellbeing of Monash Health employees and patients, and reflect the current risk of COVID-19 transmission in the community, we have introduced COVID-19 surveillance testing for our employees working in streaming and high-risk areas.

You can read more about the Employee COVID-19 Surveillance Testing Program here.

Looking out for ‘before and after’ – hear from Loulou, Monash Health Hand Hygiene Auditor
As part of our efforts to ensure hand hygiene stays front of mind, auditors continue to complete hand hygiene audits and promote feedback in wards and clinical areas across Monash Health.

But what does a Hand Hygiene Auditor do? What do they look for? How can you work with one to get the best results for your area? To get some answers to these questions, we spoke to Hand Hygiene Auditor Loulou Ibrahim.

Wear It Purple Day – put on your purple gear and show support for LGBTI+ youth
Wear it Purple Day, on Friday 27 August, supports the rights of young people in the LGBTI+ community. Wear It Purple is a volunteer organisation that helps focus on the prevention of bullying and reducing the incidences of suicide in this vulnerable group.

The Monash Health LGBTI+ subcommittee invites all Monash Health employees to join them in wearing something purple on Friday to help show your support to our young LGBTI+ employees, patients and visitors. Read more about how you can get involved.

STAR winner Ben saw something on his lunch break he couldn’t ignore
At yesterday’s employee forum, the STAR Award for Outstanding Care or Service Delivery was presented to Ben Meiklem – a counsellor and registered nurse with Monash Health’s Drug and Alcohol Service.

One day, on his lunch break, Ben was walking down Thomas St in Dandenong and saw people carrying an overdosed man out of a laneway onto the main street. Read about how Ben responded.

Employees take the lead in the Walk for Monash Children’s Hospital
Hundreds of Monash Health employees are taking to their local streets and ovals, having joined the virtual Winter Walk for Monash Children’s Hospital. The Winter Walk kicked off on Saturday 21 August, and runs until Monday 30 August.  The aim is to walk 10,000 steps per day, aiming for 100,000 steps over the ten days of the event.

Get to know our Pharmacy team assisting in the vaccine rollout
Monash Health Pharmacy supports the supply of COVID-19 vaccines to our vaccination centres and oversees this process, from receiving the vaccines and delivering them to our centres, right up to when they are in an immuniser’s hands. Read more about their work here.

Expansion of vaccine eligibility
Yesterday, the Victorian government announced it will expand its vaccination program to see anyone aged 16 to 59 years eligible to receive the Pfizer vaccine at state-run sites. Those in the age group will be able to choose whether they receive either Pfizer or AstraZeneca.

Importantly, those people aged 16 to 39 who have already booked in for their first dose of AstraZeneca do not need to cancel or change their appointments – they will be offered Pfizer at the time of their booking.

Those aged 60 and over will continue to receive AstraZeneca. This advice applies across state vaccination centres, including Sandown Racecourse and Cranbourne Turf Club.

Permitted workers and childcare
All employees of Monash Health are permitted workers. This includes clinical, as well as administrative and support services employees.

You may have read that this week the Victorian government confirmed permitted workers will still be able to access childcare, kindergarten, and early education centres, if; at least one parent/guardian is authorised to work, has a valid authorised worker permit, is working either at home or on-site, and they cannot make alternative supervision arrangements. You can download the permit and read more here.

Cancelling booked leave
We encourage employees to take annual leave during this time. However, we understand that plans can change, resulting in you wanting to cancel your booked annual leave.

Any requests to cancel booked annual leave need to be discussed with your manager and mutually agreed upon. While your original plans regarding leave may have changed, it’s important for your wellbeing to still take a break from work.

We also need to be mindful that operational requirements may limit your ability to take leave in the future, so taking leave as planned may be a good idea. Visit our Leave page for more information.

Have your say about UKG Dimensions
Monash Health currently uses Kronos Workforce Central to manage rosters, timesheets and leave requests.

In 2022, we are upgrading our current system to UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group) Dimensions across the organisation to make it easier to manage your working pattern, including scheduling, open shifts, and employee requests, when and where you need to.

We’re ready to share the project’s Change Impact Statement and seek your feedback.

Looking after yourself
Frustration and disappointment are natural emotions to be feeling at this time. It’s been a long 18 months, and each lockdown can seem that bit harder than the last. It’s OK to acknowledge it is tough.

It is important that we all take some time to look after ourselves and remember the basics – eat, sleep and exercise.

Lockdowns can be particularly hard for those with young children. We have a range of resources on our employee COVID website, and you and your immediate family members can also access our Employee Assistance Program. Call to make an appointment on 1300 687 327.