LGH joins North-West Regional Hospital at COVID escalate level three

The escalation came only hours after the government said COVID-related hospital cases in the North were not "under control".

Following an outbreak at the North-West Regional Hospital, the region's primary referral hospital escalated to level three of its COVID-19 Management Escalation Plan at 8.30am on Friday. The LGH was escalated to level three at 5 pm the same day.

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Acting State Health Commander Professor Tony Lawler said the escalation of the LGH was driven by high caseloads and staff absences.

"This follows a recommendation from the acting Regional Health Commander Dr Alasdair MacDonald and the Regional Health Management Team and is based on the level of COVID-positive inpatients, the impact of COVID-19 outbreaks, general hospital demand and increasing level of staff absences impacting general operations," he said.

Professor Lawler said staff were working hard to address the demand for care at the LGH, and the public could have confidence emergency presentation needs would be met.

It was understood about 60 staff were absent from the hospital with COVID, while about 40 were close contacts with about half also absent from work.

Three wards including the acute medical ward and wards 5D and 3R have also been closed off to visitors due to the high number of COVID-19 patients.

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Professor Lawler said the level three escalation only applied to the LGH, not district hospitals, community health services or mental health services in the Northern region.

He said some services would be assessed and others reviewed, but confirmed visitor restrictions would remain in place, with one visitor allowed per patient for 30 minutes, unless an exemption was provided by the nurse-in-charge.

"Planned elective services will be reviewed," he said. "

"Outpatient clinics remain unchanged, however, they will also be monitored and reviewed as required."

As with other periods of high demand at the LGH, Professor Lawler encouraged people who did not have urgent medical issues to avoid attending the hospital.

"If people have conditions that are not an emergency or do not require a hospital admission, they are encouraged to think about the right service for their needs and to reconsider attending the LGH Emergency Department during this time," he said.

"During this time, we ask the communities of Northern Tasmania for their patience and understanding should they experience longer waiting times for lower acuity presentations."

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Asked on Friday if the situation was under control, Health Department deputy secretary Dale Webster said Northern hospitals would need to record a sustained period of no new transmission before he was comfortable using the term.

"No, I wouldn't say it's under control," he said.

"I would say we are managing it and the reason I would say that is that there needs to be a period of time where we have no new cases before we would consider we have it under control."

The outbreaks follow a peak in new cases and hospitalisations related to the BA.4 and BA.5 strains of the coronavirus, with 88 people in the state's hospitals, 22 of whom were being treated specifically for COVID.

Mr Webster said it was difficult to say how many patients had contracted COVID from the outbreak with transmission in the community high. "It's hard to say who got it from the actual outbreak, and the reason for that is with people being admitted from the community, and at the moment, we have a large outbreak across the state with numbers increasing," he said.

"There would have been a number on the ward that would have got it from external sources, and of course, before we closed the ward a couple of days ago there were visitors coming in and out."

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The spike in cases has also seen a rise in the state's death toll with the death of three people, two in their 90s and one in their 70s bringing the state's total to 100.

On Friday, there were 1589 new daily cases, while the total number of cases in the state was recorded at 8927.

Following the end of the public emergency declaration on June 30, the Department of Health ceased publishing daily COVID stats on Facebook, but has continued to make the data available on the governmental coronavirus website.

Premier Jeremy Rockliff defended the government's decision to limit the availability of information, saying the government remained transparent on COVID cases, despite the government withholding information earlier in the week.

"You know, there's been no less transparency at all, information is accessible in terms of COVID statistics and data, that has not changed and if you would ask me a series of questions around data I would have provided that for you," he said.

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