Name withheld(1)

COMMUNICATION CONCERNS DURING COVID-19

My name is NAME WITHHELD & I work as a Communication Support Officer at the NWRH Burnie.

I would like to provide you with some feedback on the difficulties I encountered doing my job leading up to 13th April when I was furloughed.

There were many causes of concern during this time.  The lack of communication – directly & indirectly & the lack of leadership in our area were the main ones.

On 1^st March the first case of Covid-19 was detected in Tasmania, in Launceston.  This gentleman flew into Launceston on a Virgin flight.  On 2^nd March the switchboard at NWRH began receiving calls from concerned travellers who were on that flight.  Flight details were advised on the nightly news bulletins across Tasmania.  People who travelled on that flight were obviously concerned & called the hospital.  Nobody thought to warn the Switchboard at the NWRH that this may happen.  Surely Public Health could have warned the 4 main hospital switchboards & advised what we should do if we received calls from members of the public.  At this stage I connected my first caller to Health Direct, then did some research & thought I probably should have used the Public Health hotline.  Over the next few days we changed between Health Direct & Public Health as we could not find any information as to where we should direct the callers.

26^th March Amongst ourselves Switchboard/Reception staff implemented some major changes in our protocols around the administration of keys for government cars, accommodation etc.  We modified our procedures re our mobile office that we take to & from the Emergency Department when we change our work place.

28^th March Emailed Infection Control re our concerns with exposure as we had not had any direction from management.  Changes were made as a consequence of this email after discussion with Infection Control & consequently with management.

At no time did management come to us as a group & discuss ways to assist with preparedness for Covid-19.  We implemented changes ourselves.

One of the new protocols was to use gloves when dealing with Government Car keys & visitors unit keys & use a basket to collect the keys and then sanitise them at the end of the day.  This action was ridiculed by the Deputy Director of Medical Services in a meeting with Corporate Services staff, but no suggestion as to what we should be doing.

4^th April First positive test for Healthcare Worker @ NWRH.

Major meetings were held in the hospital all day.  No information was conveyed to Switchboard.  I paged the on call physio during that Saturday morning – no answer.  I received a call from her later in the day.  Her husband had been a patient at Regional Imaging & heard her being paged.  She had been stood down along with all Allied Health Staff the previous night however that information wasn’t made known to switchboard.

5^th April 1300 I was advised by the After Hours Nurse Manager that there were to be no visitors to the wards.

1400 I advised Family members who were coming in to visit that there were to be no visitors.

One visitor asked me “Is my Mum safe in this hospital?”

Another visitor wanted “to just look thru the window & wave to my husband”

I called the After Hours Nurse Manager who came & talked to the visitors.

1600As I was finishing my shift the visitor decision was reversed.

6^th April I listened to the Premier’s conference on my phone at work because it was the only way to receive information.

I emailed Nursing Administration at 1235 to check on the status of visitors.  When my shift ended at 1500 there was still no answer.

I was then on days off & returned to work on Friday 10th April at 2300.  I worked three night shifts before being furloughed

12^th April Premier announces NWRH will close for deep cleaning.

Being on the frontline both on the phones and face to face was extremely difficult during this time and especially so when the communication and support was not available.