Hospital staff face new COVID pressures over holiday period

Despite predictions that the new wave of COVID-19 will be “short and small”, the AMA cautions about the potential impact on already hard-pressed hospital staff dealing with infections during the Christmas holiday period.

The AMA warns that hospital staff dealing with the new wave of COVID-19 infections during the upcoming holiday season will face new threats and increased pressure.

AMA President Professor Stephen Robson warned in the Guardian that new COVID variants were evading immunity.

“We have got a situation where the overall population is at risk of infection and we have also got a huge backlog of work that hospitals were unable to do during the mid-year and earlier waves, and a lot of staff who have not had any capacity to take leave for a while,” he said.

“We think all these things together pose a very major risk over the holiday season when people will be on holidays and there will also be a huge amount of travel.”

Professor Robson said there were “confused rules” around mask-wearing and social distancing in hospitals, which posed a major health risk, and he called on state and territory health departments to step up to clarify the rules.

“A lot of hospitals have relaxed or removed mask requirements and that is a concern because that puts visitors and also patients and staff at risk.

“You need staff to run a hospital so if we have increased rates of staff being infected either in the community or worse still in the workplace, that degrades the hospital’s capacity to provide care quickly.”

AMA Vice President Dr Danielle McMullen said in the Australian that although case numbers were not rising as quickly as they did during the winter wave, caution was required.

“If COVID has shown us one thing is that it’s hard to predict and it pays to be prepared particularly before the holiday season,” she said.

“Our main concern is around staff furloughing. Hospital staff are required to stay home if they test positive and if we are seeing high numbers in the community then that will transcend to both hospitals and primary care.”