BAD TIMING FOR BORDERS
OMICRON RAVAGED HEALTH SYSTEM
THE Tasmanian government opened the border just before the “hardest weeks of the year” for the state’s overwhelmed hospital system, a Covid inquiry has heard.
Health commander Kathrine Morgan-Wicks said that many health workers were on holiday during Christmas when Omicron tore through the state.
“From a Tasmanian perspective, the brunt was really felt in unfortunately the hardest week of the year to staff any service, which was between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day,” she said.
“Certainly we had prepared to conduct thousands of tests in that time and certainly we threw every available staff member, including bringing staff back from leave, into operating those PCR tests as it then was.”
Premier Jeremy Rockliff told the parliamentary inquiry in Hobart on Friday that they had not expected the sheer infectiousness of the Omicron strain, which ended up being magnitudes more transmissible than previous modelling.
Mr Rockliff said they had been acting on available data at the time and had acted swiftly to change their plans in the face of the unexpected Omicron variant.
“We managed as best as we possibly could at the time and we were supported by some very capable people throughout government,” he said.
“People across departments, people on the ground, were incredibly adaptable to what was very clearly over Christmas a very, very challenging time as Ms MorganWicks
said.” The health system continues to feel the consequences as hospital waiting lists stretch on for years.
Friday’s outpatient waiting list data for southern Tasmania shows an 831-day waiting time for “urgent” brain surgery and a 504-day waiting time for urgent paediatric medicine. The waiting time for “non-urgent” brain surgery in southern Tasmania is 2420 days, or 6.6 years.
Waiting times for nearly all wards are significantly higher than pre-Covid levels, although not as bad as during the height of the pandemic.
Mr Rockliff said the government had increased the number of hospital bed spaces in the lead-up to the December 15 border opening.
Since July 2021, the government added 146 hospital bed spaces, including 41 in private hospitals as part of a special arrangement with the private sector.
Despite this, Mr Rockliff said bed spaces were still in very high demand throughout Tasmania.
“We recognise the outpatient waiting list, while it has decreased, is still way, way too high,” he said.
“Even though it’s a preparation in response to the borders opening, (due to) the impact of the pandemic and Covid, those beds have been well utilised.”
Friday’s Covid statistics showed 1018 new infections, 5445 total active cases, three Covid patients in the ECU, and 181,496 released from isolation.
More than a third of Tasmanians have now had Covid and are among the most vaccinated population in Australia at above 99 per cent.
A Covid patient in his 80s died in southern Tasmania, bringing the state’s total death toll to 89.