As our hospitals prepare for a COVID-19 surge, doctors tell me they’re worried. Are there enough masks and the best protective gear? What they need to hear now, is that our national priority, is for no healthworker to die from this infection. #auspol
#SpringSt
The daily numbers don’t tell us how this virus wreaks havoc on health systems.
It’s like it targets hospitals & clinics, infecting staff, putting them off work, or onto ventilators. In Italy 80 doctors & dentists, & 25 nurses have died: tg24.sky.it/cronaca/2020/0…
Thousands of Italian healthworkers have been infected, hampering the health system as it treats people with COVID-19 and everything else. Here in Aust when one healthworker is diagnosed, maybe a dozen more leave work to be tested.
Staff doing high risk jobs, like inserting/removing breathing tubes, being coughed on, are at highest risk. They want to know they’re getting the best respirators. If I’m being intubated, I want my doctor to feel safe so they can worry about me.
They want transparency on PPE stock. If genuine shortages, they will work around that. How much is there? What’s the burn rate? Put it in an app for all staff to see.
Staff want to know they’ll be looked after with sick leave, compensation if they get sick.
When health ministers promise money, the message to spend it, isn’t always filtering down the chain. To restructure care, minimise attendance at hospital. #SpringSt #coronavirusaustralia
Supply chain difficulties and overflowing medical waste bins both point to the need for local manufacture of reusable respirators and protective suits and other PPE. Then we've got what we need and we can clean and reuse it.
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