The WA health system is transitioning all public hospitals within Western Australia to a ‘red’ hospital alert phase based on widespread community transmission of COVID-19.
Hospitals will begin the transition to today and will be in full ‘red’ phase by close of business on Thursday 3 March – to coincide with the full border opening.
Dr Andrew Robertson, Chief Health Officer, said that the COVID-19 Framework for System Alert and Response (SAR) was an internal strategy supporting a coordinated risk management approach.
“The SAR has four risk ratings – green, amber, red and black which help equip health services to mitigate the risks of COVID-19 transmission and help deliver appropriate care and safety for patients, staff and visitors,” Dr Robertson said.
“At red level, health service providers will take a range of steps to manage the increased risk of COVID-19 transmission and reduce impacts within hospitals as much as possible, while protecting future service delivery.”
These actions, which will also be communicated to patients, include:
- reduced number of Category 2 and 3 elective surgeries at public and private hospitals from 14 March 2022
- increased use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) across all areas within healthcare facilities and community-based care, including the use of N95 masks for healthcare workers across all clinical areas
- increased use of rapid antigen tests (RATs) for all patients attending hospital, including the requirement for all essential visitors, carers, parents and guardians to undertake a RAT on each visit to a high-risk setting, such as transplant, haematology, oncology, renal dialysis units or wards.
- extended use of telehealth for outpatient services and deferral of non-urgent face-to-face services where clinically safe
- ·voluntary RATs three times a week for healthcare workers who regularly work with high risk patients
- healthcare workers who work in higher exposure areas (as per ‘amber’ SAR) will no longer be required to undertake regular RATs due to the widespread use of N95 masks, however a transition period of two weeks will be in place for staff who would like to continue to do RATs
- public hospital visits to be restricted to approved essential visitors or those with exemptions under the COVID-19 Public Hospital Visitor Guidelines
Some exemptions – considered on a case-by-case basis – for essential visitors may be granted in circumstances including visits on compassionate or palliative care grounds, as well as for maternity or child patients, and patients with a disability.
Dr Robertson said that while these measures may be inconvenient or upsetting for some people, they were necessary to help keep hospital patients – among the most vulnerable in our community – safe.
“The WA health system thanks all staff, patients and visitors for their ongoing support of WA’s hospital system to manage our COVID-19 response, in what is recognised as a very challenging time,” Dr Robertson said.
