Regional hospitals are continuing to strain under huge demand, with two north-east Victorian health services this week declaring an internal emergency.
The Code Yellow internal emergency, which allows a health service to adopt care models outside of its typical models, was declared for Albury and Wodonga hospitals on Tuesday, and is the second time it's been activated at Albury Wodonga Health in less than a month.
A Code Yellow was also declared on Monday at the Northeast Health Service in Wangaratta.
Shepparton's Goulburn Valley Health on Tuesday also urged people to avoid its emergency department if their conditions were not urgent due to excessive demand, instead encouraging people to visit a GP, urgent care centre, or call Nurse-On-Call.
'Winter is coming'
Albury Wodonga Health is continuing to treat more than 200 emergency department presentations each day, up from about a previous 160, with many patients being deferred to non-traditional beds for care.
Most of the patients arriving to the emergency department are in need of urgent care, and many are presenting due to deferred or avoided medical treatment amid the pandemic.
The health service has stated that it is short of about 50 beds on any given day, and Albury Wodonga Health interim chief executive Janet Chapman has described the situation as "the new normal" for the regional health service.
Staff expected the situation to only become worse during winter.
"We are acutely aware that winter is coming, and with that with that we anticipate additional COVID activity and certainly we are anticipating an influenza season this year, which we haven't had for the last couple, so we are planning," Ms Chapman said.
This included deploying staff to areas of most need, urgent workforce planning to meet short and long-term demands for services, working with private and regional health partners to meet the high demand, and continuing to drive recruitment of qualified nurses to the region.
A multi-million-dollar problem
Albury Wodonga Health staff have been desperately lobbying for funds to build a new hospital with greater emergency and inpatient capacity as it continues to face Code Yellow demands.
The federal government announced $20 million funding this month for future hospital planning through the Albury Wodonga Regional Deal program.
"We have not yet got a lot of information about how that $20 million that the federal government has announced will be applied," Ms Chapman said.
"We are very hopeful that it may help us to address some of our critical issues such as the need for additional beds and additional theatres, so we look forward to working with the federal government on the application of those funds."
More hospitals likely to struggle
Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley has warned the worst is yet to come for regional hospitals, with Omicron cases expected to peak in April.
He said the state government was supporting the Albury Wodonga Health service.
"They are really struggling under quite a large number of people being furloughed from that health service from a number of exposures, and it's hit pretty hard," he said.
"It's an issue at Albury Wodonga Health today, it might well be an issue for any number of health services across the state over the next few weeks."
