FROM Monday, Bendigo private hospitals and day surgery centres will resume elective surgeries at 50 percent capacity.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Victorian government announced the statewide resumption on Friday, along with a $1.4 billion investment scheme to help support the struggling health system.
The announcements come as the state recorded 11,240 new COVID-19 cases and 36 deaths on Friday.
Health Minister Martin Foley could not confirm a date for full elective surgery resumption, however said the time had come to start taking cautious steps forward.
"We are now in a position.. to cautiously and carefully turn that system on next week," he said.
The move comes after mounting pressure on the state government this week, following NSW premier Dominic Perrotet's announcement that the state would resume elective procedures in both public and private facilities at 75 percent capacity from Monday.
All sides of state politics got involved in the debate this week, with the Victorian Nationals calling for a lift on the ban on Wednesday, arguing patients were missing out on critical care.
"Victoria's COVID hospitalisations continue to fall, yet Labor is cruelly denying local people a chance to relieve chronic suffering," state Nationals leader Peter Walsh said.
"Victorians are suffering in pain while hospital and mental health wait lists get longer."
However, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Foundation (ANMF) have been lobbying the state government all week to continue the elective surgery pause.
In a statement on Friday, the ANMF said they were pleased with the private hospital resumption outcome, noting that the public health sector was still under intense pressure.
"Elective surgery cannot resume in the public system until hospitals have ended surge staffing models and are able to staff to the legislated, mandated nurse/ midwife ratios without the use of re-deployed staff," Mr Gilbert said.
"The private acute sector must step up and take up more of the public sector burden over the next few months."
However, Bendigo Health say that while the elective surgery pause was necessary to manage the increased caseloads, the hospital is now well equipped to recommence the procedures.
"We've been on standby code brown since the start of the pandemic two years ago," said Bendigo Health Code Brown Commander David Rosaia.
"With the code brown we set up emergency management systems, incident management response teams and we minimised some services to provide COVID resources.
More news:
"A lot of our staff within the theatre wards that normally catered for elective surgeries were redirected to areas of need such as the COVID and ICU wards, where we were having increased COVID presentations."
Despite systemic statewide health system pressure, Mr Rosaia said Bendigo Health was assisted by St John of God Hospital in order to continue providing some 'urgent' category 1 elective surgeries - procedures other metropolitan hospitals struggled to keep up with.
"So those are elective surgeries that need to be completed within 30 days," he said.
"And we've been able to cater for every single one of those, even with the code brown.
"That's a really good example of the public and private hospitals working together."
Mr Rosaia also added that Bendigo Health was not required to bring back a single staff member from their annual leave.
"We've been able to manage all of that and still allow our staff to have a much needed break," he said.
While elective surgeries will resume at St John of God private hospital on Monday, Bendigo Health say they are well equipped to resume the procedures in the public facility.
"We're very fortunate to have a brand new hospital," Mr Rosaia said, "so we've got space to expand our theatre capacity,
"If the state is ready to go with elective surgery we are very prepared to follow."
However, the commander warned a cautious approach is still necessary, as staff furlough has seen a slight increase.
"I'm mindful that even though the hospital numbers have decreased, the furlough numbers are going up a little bit again," Mr Rosaia said.
"So we need to still be a little bit cautious and see how the next week goes with children returning to school because a lot of parents who work at the hospital could be affected."
The hospital will wait for directives from the Department of Health, however they're expecting that public hospital elective surgeries will be able to resume in as early as two weeks.
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content:
- Download our app on iOS and Android
- Bookmark bendigoadvertiser.com.au
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter @BgoAddy
- Follow us on Instagram @bendigoadvertiser
- Join us on Facebook
- Follow us on Google News