Published on 30 June 2023

COVID EASING OF RESTRICTIONS 

This week Western Health has eased some of our COVID settings in relation to mask wearing and visitor guidelines.  

Western Health continues to monitor a range of internal and external data that informs our COVID settings based on the level of risk, including data from the Western Public Health Unit on a range of indicators like residential aged care outbreaks, seven-day rolling averages of cases and hospitalisation, and genomic surveillance of PCR testing and wastewater. Key internal groups use this data to determine whether we need to scale up or scale down our COVID settings. 

In response to a decreased risk of COVID currently within the community, our settings are being adjusted to the following effective immediately: 

Masking: 

  • Masking is not required in public areas and non-clinical settings, although remain recommended.  
  • Visitors will be required to wear surgical masks to visit patients, rather than the KF94 masks. Managers are asked to remove their supply of KF94 masks from their entrances and put them into storage for when they are next needed. 
  • Staff in all inpatient, ambulatory and procedural clinical areas (including offices and staff stations in inpatient clinical areas), the Emergency Department, Dialysis, Day Oncology, Respiratory/Sleep Laboratory and Imaging, continue to wear N95 masks, ensuring a fit check seal is performed each time applied. 

Visitor number and visit duration exemptions: 

We are simplifying visitor arrangements. We are now allowing each patient to have 2 visitors at a time. There are no restrictions on the number of visitors per day. We suggest keeping visitation duration to two hours per person; however, exemptions are available for end-of-life care, critically ill patients or patients with high-level clinical or social needs who would benefit from the presence of longer durations. Nurses/midwives in charge of each department are able to grant these exemptions. 

Visitor guidelines in full can be found on Western Health’s website. 

Staff PCR testing: 

Williamstown Emergency Department continues to provide PCR testing for staff who have COVID-like symptoms but are RAT negative. PCR testing is available from 8am-11am daily. 

COVID booster vaccinations: 

This is the final week for staff to get their COVID booster vaccine as well as their free influenza vaccine from Western Health. From next week, staff will need to access these vaccines from their GP or via a Pharmacy at their own cost.  

We are implementing these changes to give our staff a break from the tighter settings whilst the risk level is lower. As always, we will continue to monitor the situation, data and level of risk and will amend our COVID settings in the future as required to ensure that we provide a safe environment for our staff, patients and visitors.  

Thanks for your understanding and support with implementing these changes. 

Regards,

John Ferraro

Chief Operating Officer