There were 56 COVID-19 cases in intensive care units on Wednesday,the highest number since the pandemic began. About half of these cases are ventilated.
Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital has paused non-urgent surgery.Janie Barrett
Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred,St Vincent’s and Liverpool hospitals all have a pause on non-urgent surgery,also known as category three elective surgery,such as joint replacements,eye surgery and some cosmetic procedures.
The state with one death:a woman in her 90s from Sydney’s south-west who was unvaccinated. More than 100 mystery cases were reported,bringing the total number of unlinked cases to 689. It was the third consecutive day when most new cases have been unlinked.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said on Wednesday that “of course” the hospital system was under stress,after several COVID-19 exposures placed clinical staff in isolation,but it was being managed.
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Only about one quarter of the cases were in isolation while contagious,with authorities warning people needed to stop visits to other households.
“It is unfair that our health staff are being put at risk because people aren’t listening and not complying with what the health orders require,” Mr Hazzard said.
Despite the high caseload,ICU medics said NSW was far better prepared to cope with a surge in hospitalisations than in the first wave of the pandemic after the introduction of the national Critical Health Resource Information System,or CHRIS,which can track hospital caseloads in real-time.
NSW has about 930 intensive care beds across 67 units.
“Intensive care is a finite resource,and even under normal circumstances,it’s almost full. But we now have excellent processes and procedures in place to share the load between units and hospitals,” Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society vice-president Mark Nicholls said.
A spokesperson for Sydney Local Health District said,while non-urgent surgeries were temporarily paused at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital,“arrangements are in place with private hospitals to assist us with non-urgent elective surgical load if necessary”.
They said the hospital was expanding ICU capacity to meet demand,if needed,as part of usual pandemic planning.
Sixteen people in RPA’s emergency department were admitted to the hospital on Tuesday as a precaution after a COVID-19 patient attended.
A senior clinician at St Vincent’s Hospital,which has a large COVID-19 ICU ward,confirmed the hospital was pausing non-urgent surgery.
ICU staff care for COVID-19 positive patients in St Vincent’s Hospital’s ICU.Kate Geraghty
“We are doing all the cases that we need to meet the patients’ needs,” the doctor said. “But we are aware things can change. If things do become a little bit worse we won’t be able to maintain the load we are doing.”
The hospital has relocated patients to different wards to make space for additional COVID-19 patients if needed.
The south-west Sydney hospital system has come under particular pressure over the past two weeks after hundreds of healthcare staff were plunged into isolation at Liverpool,Campbelltown,Fairfield and Bankstown-Lidcombe hospitals.
An exposure in Liverpool hospital’s theatres two weeks ago resulted in the suspension of non-urgent surgery at Liverpool and Campbelltown and the temporary loss of hundreds of hospital and paramedic staff to self-isolation. Then, last week,closing those wards to new patients and leading to nine infections.
Wednesday July 28:NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has confirmed Greater Sydney's lockdown will be extended by another four weeks as the state recorded 177 new local COVID-19 cases.
Another two student nurses who worked at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital have also tested positive with 125 staff and five patients identified as close contacts.
Liverpool’s theatres have only conducted emergency surgery for the past two weeks,with urgent elective surgery to recommence as staff affected by the initial exposure return to work. Where possible,surgeries have been redirected to Bankstown-Lidcombe.
Last month,more than after a student nurse who worked at both facilities tested positive.
Royal Australasian College of Surgeons NSW Chair Payal Mukherjee said the decision to reduce surgery capacity on a hospital-by-hospital basis,rather than have a blanket ban on elective surgery as occurred during the first months of the pandemic,was “commendable” although staff remained stretched.
“Last year we had patients miss out on or delay care who would have had good outcomes with early surgery,” she said,adding a statewide ban would have a worse impact now after Commonwealth funding for patients to receive surgeries at private hospitals in metropolitan Sydney ended last month.
Dr Mukherjee said workforce exhaustion was emerging as an issue after hospital staff numbers were impacted by exposures,expressing concern about cases caused by public health order breaches and the possible impact of the weekend’s protests.
“We’re still managing to do what we can do to serve the community,but if the community doesn’t comply it’s going to get harder and harder,” she said.
NSW Health Services Union secretary Gerard Hayes said the health and hospital workforce was “definitely feeling the strain”.
“Everyone is pulling together and exercising goodwill but that only goes so far,” he said.
“Anxiety and exhaustion are a real threat. The federal government has promised a surge workforce but sadly there’s been no sign of that to date.”
This month,South Western Sydney and Western Sydney local health districts introduced COVID-19 vaccination requirements for students undertaking placements in high-risk wards at hospitals.
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