Published on 16 March 2023

Ongoing monitoring of COVID risk

Last week, we eased some COVID settings at Western Health in relation to mask wearing and no longer require visitors to sign in via security at our entrances. Western Health continues to monitor a range of internal and external data that informs our COVID risk settings, including data from the Western Public Health Unit on a range of indicators like residential aged care outbreaks, seven-day rolling averages of cases and hospitalisation, and genomic surveillance of PCR testing and wastewater. Key internal groups use this data to determine whether we need to scale up or scale down our COVID settings.

Visitor number and visit duration exemptions

For the time being, we are keeping inpatient visitor numbers at two per day and visit duration to two hours; however, exemptions are available for end-of-life care, critically ill patients or patients with high-level clinical or social needs who would benefit from the presence of a visitor. Visitors seeking exemptions for these reasons should speak to the ward Nurse Unit Manager or Clinical Nurse Coordinators.

With security no longer signing in visitors at entrances, we have returned to our pre-COVID practice of individual departments monitoring visitor numbers. Departments can use daily ward patient lists to document visitor quotas and any exemptions in place. Staff should ask that visitors of patients coordinate visits amongst themselves, to avoid possible confusion and people being turned away once quotas have been reached.

Visitor guidelines in full can be found on Western Health’s website.

Reporting of staff furlough numbers

The Department of Health continues to collect information from health services on staff furlough numbers due to COVID. To ensure accuracy of data reported, we request that divisions continue to submit their staff furlough numbers prior to 12pm each weekday via this link. Please note:

  • One entry is to be submitted for each division;
  • Data should be entered separately for each Western Health site within the one submission;
  • To prevent possible duplication, people must be reported according to their divisional cost centre only; and
  • The report needs to be completed daily irrespective of whether you have staff furloughed or not.

In addition, Western Health requires staff members to report their COVID positive status by informing their direct managers and completing this RedCap survey.

Thanks for your understanding and support with these recent changes.

Regards

John Ferraro
Chief Operating Officer