At the peak of the crisis in early August, so many staff were off sick or in quarantine, remaining staff were experiencing extremely high workloads and care was becoming difficult – forcing the hospital’s decision to close wards
“We were seeing escalating numbers of infections in healthcare workers. We had implemented as many of the precautions as we could and we were still seeing numbers go up,” said associate professor Caroline Marshall, the hospital’s head of infection prevention.
Over five days, 15 patients from the hospital’s Royal Park campus were evacuated to other health services. Another 45 were redistributed across the hospital, and about 20 changes were made to the hospital’s infection control procedures. Every staff member working on a COVID-19 ward was issued with an N95 mask – a move made well before the Victorian healthcare authorities changed the guidelines.The theory, in part, is that housing more patients with the virus together increases the amount of virus circulating in a ward. The hospital’s ventilation systems – many decades old – were also inspected.
Despite that, Professor Marshall was keen to emphasise she did not believe issuing N95 masks had been the sole key to bringing the infection under control.
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