Sunraysia health authorities prepare for COVID-19 fight

SUNRAYSIA’S top health professionals have united in the fight against COVID-19.

Mildura Base Hospital on Friday announced a number of tests for the virus had been carried out, but there was yet to be a confirmed case in the region.

The hospital has established a working group with Sunraysia Community Health Services and Mildura Health Private Hospital and is working in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to establish a testing clinic in the region.

The hospital announced the groups would work towards plans for a COVID-19 testing clinic, preparation for telehealth services and fine-tuning protocols on treatment of the virus.

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MBH intensive care and anaesthetics director Dr Alison Walker will chair the working group and said the collaboration had been in progress since January.

“The collaboration includes all of our local health providers and agencies and GPs including expert input ranging from an infectious disease specialist to logistics managers,” she said.

“The sole focus has been ensuring the health services within the community are ready for when we see COVID-19 emerge in the district.”

Uncertainty remains about when a clinic will be established in the region and protocols for community testing.

Due to Mildura’s remoteness, the decision to pull resources from the private and public sector has been behind the decision to establish working group.

“What we do know, though, is that the remoteness of Mildura presents some unique challenges that calls for a different response here,” Dr Walker said.

“It was imperative that the agencies here worked together to ensure the community is as safe as it can be through this unprecedented time.”

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The group has been working against models provided by DHHS to prepare for a number of different scenarios.

Sunraysia Community Health Services chief executive officer Simone Heald said work with a range of community health organisations and collaborating resources was necessary in delivering the best possible plan of action.

“Work included audits of our collective human resource capacity and the local supplies of consumables and other resources,” she said.

“We worked with GPs and external providers to look at all of the potential impacts and how we can best utilise and support them, and how they can contribute to the overall response.

“There has been an incredible amount of work on the part of every one of the working group partners, and the community can feel very confident that we have developed a plan that will maximise the use of all of our available resources as demand emerges.”

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Mildura Health Private Hospital chief executive officer Marcus Guthrie said he was impressed with the collaboration efforts.

“It has been an intensive, long-term effort, but we were all focused on the one goal, and that is, essentially, to build the capability and capacity of the health services by working on ways to share our resources,” he said.

“This is an unprecedented collaborative effort, but these are exceptional challenges we are facing, and it’s an absolute credit to each of the agencies, the private providers in our community and the Department of Health and Human Services, that this response has been possible.”