Six regional Victorian hospitals will be able to defer non-essential services and postpone staff leave under a "Code Brown" announced today.
The hospitals affected are Albury Wodonga Health, Barwon Health, Bendigo Health, Grampians Health, Goulburn Valley Health and the Latrobe Regional Hospital.
Acting Health Minister James Merlino said the decision was made in a bid to ease pressure on the Victorian health system amid the latest spike in COVID-19 cases.
There are 1,229 COVID-19 patients in Victorian hospitals.
A Code Brown is part of the State Health Emergency Response Arrangements and is designed to allow health services to prepare and respond to disasters like transport accidents, chemical spills, floods or fires.
The Department of Health said there were still more that 4,000 healthcare workers unable to work in hospitals across the state because of isolation requirements or exposure to COVID-19.
Code could be in place for weeks
The Code Brown is expected to be in place for four to six weeks to deal with an expected increase in COVID-related admissions, Victorian health services deputy controller Adam Horsburgh said.
"You can look at the numbers in New South Wales as a possible indication of where we may get to [with case numbers]," he said.
He said staff leave would not be cancelled unless it was "absolutely necessary" and would only happen for the minimum amount of time required.
The regional health services moving to Code Brown have also been asked to nominate other hospitals in their areas can take coronavirus patients.
"So we'll leave that for Barwon to work out for the south-west, for Ballarat to work out with their colleagues in the Grampians region, and so on and so forth," Mr Horsburgh said.
Code Brown 'unavoidable'
In Shepparton, Goulburn Valley Health's critical care unit and emergency department are scrambling to fill staff shortages due to the pandemic.
The hospital had already started activating its own Code Brown, shutting "less essential" services and redeploying staff to critical areas.
Mr Sharp said 160 workers were currently furloughed due to COVID-19 — a surge on last week's figure of 40.
"That's about 7 per cent of our workforce," he said.
"On top of that, we have about 160 full time positions we're unable to fill.
Mr Sharp added that it may be necessary to call staff back from leave to fill vital gaps.
"If we have to, we will," he said.
Mr Sharp said it was doubtful the Code Brown could have been avoided.
"What we're seeing at the moment is that close to 50 per cent of people we're admitting have COVID, because it's so widespread," he said.
"But they need to be admitted for some type of emergency surgery or medical episode."
Minimising staff burnout
Albury Wodonga Health acting chief executive Lucie Shanahan said despite an increased number of furloughed staff the hospital did not need to make any changes.
"We're not yet at a point where we need to undertake widescale reduction in services across Albury Wodonga Health," she said.
"This is a great opportunity for us to make sure we are well planned, we're well organised and that we do have the capacity to undertake any of the actions should the need arise locally."
Dr Shanahan said there was no need to recall staff from planned leave at the moment.
"There is an increasing level of fatigue across our staff group, as there is for every health service," she said.
The hospital enacted its own Code Brown towards the end of last year during one of its largest outbreaks.
