As we move into our first weekend out of lockdown, I want to stop and reflect on an important milestone we reached this week. One of the reasons we are able to start moving towards more freedoms is the one million COVID-19 vaccinations administered by Monash Health and our partners in the south-east.
This is a phenomenal achievement. It is a testament to the hard work, dedication, and commitment of our team who are working tirelessly to protect the community from this dangerous virus.
Vaccination is our pathway back to the life we all know and cherish.
Monash Health continues to lead in delivering that pathway, protecting hundreds of thousands of people from COVID-19 through our vaccination program. To ensure we protect as many Victorians from COVID-19 as quickly as possible, we have had to rapidly scale-up our vaccination program. This pandemic has been unprecedented requiring our response as a health service to be equally as innovative.
On 4 May this year, Monash Health opened its first mass vaccination centre at the Cranbourne Turf Club. Since then, our team has gone on to open the Sandown Racecourse Vaccination Centre, added a drive-through clinic, and established clinics across Melbourne’s South East with the support of our health service partners.
We continue to open pop-up vaccination clinics as well, creating access to vaccines for at-risk communities in partnership with councils, schools, community organisations and government. These clinics ensure that no one is left behind.
Our vaccination workforce
Our vaccination workforce, has been outstanding: from the project team who work through the planning, logistics and problem solving; the pharmacy team who supply and prepare vaccines for our clinics; the administrative team who ensure our clients are supported; our marshals and security who keep our people safe; and the clinical team who administer vaccinations but also help inform clients about the vaccines. Thank you for everything you do.
Such a rapid vaccination scale-up, has required support form by the extended COVID-19 emergency workforce. Health disciplines, who normally would not vaccinate and prepare vaccine, have been trained and have jumped in to support the rollout. These expanded workforce groups, which include Allied Health, Dental and Oral Health, Medical/Science Laboratories, some health student groups and more, have enabled us to deliver more vaccinations, while also caring for the increase in COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalisation.
We are continuing to expand our vaccination workforce. If you’re interested in learning more about the extended COVID-19 emergency workforce or applying if eligible, you’re encouraged to read more here.
Thank you to the many of you who have already put their hand up, received training and are working in these important and rewarding roles.
The journey ahead
Victoria is racing ahead to reach the target of 80% of eligible people being double vaccinated. However, our efforts will not stop when we reach it, as will continue seek to vaccinate as many people as possible.
One more vaccinated person is one less person likely to be in our ICU battling severe illness from COVID-19. Everything you do to help our vaccination program matters.
Thank you to our cleaners
One of the strong messages of this pandemic is the role that every one of our people contribute to the safe outcomes for our community and none more so than our cleaners, who have also had unprecedented changes and pressures this year.
This week we marked Thank Your Cleaner Day, an opportunity to show our appreciation for and thank the hard-working patient services employees across Monash Health.
Our patient services teams work incredibly diligently as they ensure a safe, clean and hygienic environment across our sites for all employees, visitors and patients.
I encourage you to read the story about one of our cleaners, Anabela Govinde Ramji, who has been working as a cleaner at Monash Health for 15 years, currently in Specialist Consulting as a Patient Service Assistant.
In the story, Anabela highlighted the increased efforts of her team in the past two years since the pandemic started, along with the support of her managers and colleagues.
“It is my privilege to do this job. I have been here for so long, this is my home and family and I thank you for recognising the work we do.”
Thank you Anabela and thank you to every single one of you for your work and commitment. We can only achieve excellence through a commitment like yours by everyone at Monash Health
Andrew Stripp
Chief Executive