Visitors to aged care homes may be limited again as Victoria experiences a surge in coronavirus cases
Families with loved ones in aged care centres in Melbourne have been warned to brace for stricter visiting restrictions after COVID-19 positive cases were linked to another six centres.
Aged and Community Services Australia chief executive Patricia Sparrow said she had written to the state government urging it to transfer all aged care residents who tested positive to hospital to give them the best chance of survival and prevent major outbreaks.Advertisement The son of a resident at The Orchards said his mother had been in lockdown in her room since the staff member returned a positive test."I was there on Tuesday and my mum was fine and the residents were all dining together," he said.
But Ms Sparrow believed some centres would start restricting these visits, with exceptions such as for residents in palliative care. Joy Leggo, the chief executive of Multicultural Aged Care Services in Geelong, said the pandemic was the most challenging time the sector had faced. The converted shipping container that allows residents at MACS to have visitors separated by a glass partition.Early on in the crisis MACS came up with its own innovative way to allow families to still see one another by converting a shipping container into a visitor's "pod".
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