Chief Executive COVID-19 Update: 20 September – Movement of Healthcare Workers

Movement of Healthcare Workers

As of today, we have:

• 20 COVID-19 positive inpatients
• Three employees with COVID-19
• 70 employees in precautionary quarantine

With the new Victorian Roadmap released yesterday, we continue to work with our community as we transition from lockdowns as a primary method of disease containment to a response based on vaccination and general public health measures.

An important aspect of protecting the capacity of the Victorian health service is reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission from the movement of employees within and between healthcare providers.

The Department of Health has released updated guidance on healthcare worker movement, which Monash Health has implemented, effective immediately.

The advice below is available in our Movement of Healthcare Worker guide.

Movement from a COVID streaming area
A COVID streaming area is any patient treatment area in a hospital dedicated to treating COVID-19 patients. At Monash Health these are the wards, birth suites and ICU areas caring for COVID-19 positive patients.

Healthcare workers (clinical and non-clinical) working in COVID streaming areas may work in different hospitals or health settings (if daily attestations and surveillance testing are in place).

A three-day furlough and negative test are no longer required.

You must wear appropriate PPE at all times, including an N95 as a minimum for two weeks after the move, regardless of work setting. You must also complete a daily statement (as part of your daily attestation) declaring which other health providers you have worked for in the past 14 days.

Movement between all other areas of Monash Health or across healthcare facilities
Healthcare workers (clinical and non-clinical) working in non-COVID streaming areas may work in different hospitals or health settings (if daily attestations and surveillance testing are in place).

A three-day furlough and negative test are no longer required.

You must wear appropriate PPE at all times, including an N95 as a minimum for two weeks after the move, regardless of work setting.

Movement from a hospital experiencing an outbreak or exposure
If you are identified as a primary close contact as a result of an outbreak in your workplace, you must remain in quarantine and furlough for 14 days unless advised otherwise by Infection Prevention or SEPHU.

If you are working at a site experiencing an active outbreak (as advised by the Monash Health Medical Director Infection Prevention), movement to another site is discouraged but may occur where a risk assessment has been undertaken and approved by Infection Prevention.

Movement from a hotel quarantine site
If you have undertaken a placement, worked at, or volunteered at a hotel quarantine site, you must not work at Monash Health within 14 days, unless you have:

• completed three consecutive rostered days off and returned a negative COVID-19 test within 48 hours of your first Monash Health shift
• provided evidence of the negative test result before commencing work at Monash Health

If you have been released from hotel quarantine yourself, you must not return to work at Monash Health for at least seven days after completing quarantine and only once you have returned a negative COVID-19 test seven days after leaving hotel quarantine.

Movement between metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria
Travel to/from metropolitan Melbourne and rural/regional areas to provide healthcare services is permitted, as long as you have not been advised to self-quarantine and have not been based at a health service experiencing an active outbreak in the previous 14 days. This includes visiting medical, nursing and allied health clinicians, and junior doctors undertaking training rotations.

Managers must undertake a risk assessment of the transmission risk posed by each worker (particularly those presenting from a designated COVID streaming hospital).

Visiting healthcare workers must:

• Comply with surveillance testing requirements.

• Wear appropriate PPE at all times, including an N95 as a minimum for two weeks after the move, regardless of work setting.

• Adhere to other restrictions aligned to your primary residential location (i.e., as an authorised worker, the public health restrictions related to your place of residence ‘go with you’).

Healthcare workers joining Monash Health for an extended basis (such as new rotating junior doctors or new employees transitioning from regional Victoria) must return a negative test within 48 hours of transitioning to Monash Health.

Employee workplace declarations
All employees must complete an Employee Workplace Declaration. This is a state requirement for all healthcare workers and important as it helps us understand where team members are working across multiple services. If you have not completed your Employee Workplace Declaration, please do so now.

Employee Attestations
Our Daily Employee Attestation questions have been updated. You will now be asked to declare if you have worked at another health service in the past 14 days and, if so, whether this was in a COVID streaming area. This information is for contact tracing purposes only and declaring you have worked in another service/COVID streaming area will not cause you to fail the attestation.

Advice for screening teams
Updated advice for our screening teams is available here.

Thank you, as always, for your ongoing dedication and care.

Andrew Stripp
Chief Executive