MILDURA Base Public Hospital (MBPH) staff pulling 16-hour double shifts this week to make up for colleagues sidelined by the city's COVID-19 emergency have been described as "superheroes without capes".
MBPH chief executive Terry Welch said 55 hospital workers had been forced to get tested and isolate after being identified as close contacts.
"Yesterday we were talking 45 staff furloughed through the process of getting tested and then going into isolation," he said on Tuesday.
"We were 55 this morning, which is a fluid number. It's dependent now on community exposures, not work-related exposures.
"Every time there is a new exposure site revealed, it affects our staff too, because they are no different to anyone else in the community."
Mr Welch said reinforcements were "on the way" to help relieve the immense pressures on staff in the emergency department and intensive care unit.
"There's no question we need them," he said.
"To give you an example, Swan Hill are sending five staff, Bendigo is looking at who's available, and there's some staff coming from an agency.
"By tomorrow, we'll have at least 13 responders to our call to arms. That's a great start, but we'll need more to support the staff shouldering heavy workloads.
"These people are superheroes who don't wear capes."
He said some services had been paused due to the staff shortages.
"We are still doing some high-level elective surgery where it is clearly an urgent situation, but we've had to wind a lot back," Mr Welch said.
"Any walk-up clinic has been stopped, apart from chemotherapy, dialysis and our antenatal program, which is continuing for mums and families."
Asked how 45 staff had been exposed to the positive case, he said: "It gets back to the fact that with the new Delta strain -- there is enormous concern about how easily it spreads.
"So the public health unit has an extremely low threshold to anyone in the vicinity (of a positive case)."
He thanked the community for their support and urged local residents to work with the testing teams at the three local clinics.
"They are doing the best they can in the extreme circumstances," Mr Welch said.
