Barwon Health chief executive Frances Diver has revealed the health service is preparing to open a second COVID-19 ward at University Hospital to help manage the increase of cases in the region.
In a video message posted on Barwon Health’s social media this week, Ms Diver, who is isolating at home after testing positive for COVID-19, said while the Omicron strain was less severe, it was putting pressure on resources.
“We have moved to a different phase of the pandemic,” she said.
“Originally we were managing individual cases and contact tracing in great detail. We then moved to managing outbreaks and containing outbreaks in particular areas, but now we’ve really moved to widespread community transmission.
“We need to an entirely different approach to manage the pandemic. Managing this widespread community transmission is possible now.
“This variant of the coronavirus is less virulent and causing less severe illness and less hospitalisation [but] the sheer number of cases mean that our hospital system is under significant pressure.”
University Hospital was treating 28 COVID-19 patients on Thursday, including seven in intensive care.
Ms Diver said the increasing case numbers in the Barwon South West region meant the hospital needed to be prepared for more hospitalisations.
“[We have] very few in ICU but we do have increasing numbers of admissions and we are just preparing to open our second dedicated COVID-19 ward at University Hospital Geelong,” she said.
She said the service was monitoring around 100 high-risk people with COVID-19 across the region.
Ms Diver said the best response to the situation was for the community to continue getting vaccinated and that more than half of the people in the region eligible for a booster dose had already received one.
