Loading
Meanwhile,there were 1491 COVID-positive people in NSW hospitals on Wednesday as paramedics have been dealing with record call-outs as those managing symptoms at home seek advice and assistance.
About 13,000 people with COVID-19 were receiving supervised care in the home and 186,000 were self-managed.
COVID-positive people managing their infection at home are advised to call triple zero if they have trouble breathing,experience chest pain or feel faint.
People who just experience a worsening of symptoms are instead advised to contact a local GP or call the NSW Health COVID-19 Care at Home Support Line on 1800 960 933.
Last week,the NSW branch of the Australian Medical Association warned moving the care of the vast majority of virus patients onto GPs wasplacing significant strain on primary care and emergency services.
Discussions are under way at NSW Health about elective surgery capacity in the state,as COVID-positive patients are treated in public and private beds. Victoria elected to suspend most non-urgent surgery on Wednesday evening,citing hospital strain.
On Wednesday,NSW Health Deputy Secretary Susan Pearce said the entire health system was “under pressure”,noting ambulance and emergency departments were particularly feeling the impact of rising virus cases,with calls to triple zero to ask for PCR tests and about low-level symptoms using up valuable capacity.
“Please do not call triple zero unless you have an emergency;please do not fill those lines with inquiries that will be directed elsewhere,” Ms Pearce said.
On Tuesday,the ambulance service again reached “status three”,meaning it was unable to meet demand. Priority one cases,with a target response time of 10 minutes,were taking over an hour on average.
A spokesperson for NSW Ambulance said it was “currently facing unprecedented demand”,followinga peak of more than 5120 calls on January 1.
“To address the sustained demand all available operational staff have been surged and overtime rates have been offered to encourage additional staffing,” the spokesperson said.
“Our Virtual Clinical Care Centre has been bolstered with more clinical support assistants commencing duties this week facilitating call-backs to patients experiencing longer than usual delays. More staff will come on board this month.”
Sixty-five casuals were now full-time employees and another 60 graduate paramedics began work with NSW Ambulance this week. Another 200 graduates will start later this month and 11 emergency medical call-takers who were sent to assist Victoria’s control centres have also been recalled.
Loading
Ms Pearce said NSW healthcare workers had challenging weeks ahead,as,although Omicron was demonstrating to be a milder infection than the Delta variant of COVID-19,the “sheer number of cases” was resulting in high hospitalisations.
“We expect for the next several weeks we will see that pressure,” she said. “We also expect,though,that once it starts to decline,it will likely decline quite quickly.”
There were 35,054 new coronavirus cases reported in NSW on Wednesday.
*Names changed for privacy reasons