Coronavirus SA: Home care vital in push to ease load on state's hospitals
The home front will be critical in South Australia’s fight to free up hospital space and preserve medical resources ahead of the coronavirus pandemic peak.
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South Australia’s ferocious fight against coronavirus continues to pay dividends, with no community transmissions yet recorded.
Most cases are being treated in their own homes, while more people are being discharged, including a mother and her baby boy sent home from Flinders Medical Centre.
There were five new SA cases confirmed today, taking the total to 42.
Four had travelled from overseas and the fifth had been in contact with another confirmed case.
Eighteen of the SA cases have mild symptoms and are being treated in their own homes, eight are in the RAH, 11 have been discharged and the latest five are being assessed.
Chief Public Health Officer Associate Professor Nicola Spurrier said home care was a “very important step in trying to preserve important health resources for the predicted increase and severity of cases”.
“We are continuing to have no community transmission at this stage,” she said.
SA’s preparations to deal with a coming peak of the disease includes leasing two vacant former private hospitals.
The Government has leased the former Calvary facilities in Wakefield St and at Walkerville from ECH for six months.
The 130-bed Wakefield St hospital will care for mildly acute COVID-19 patients, while the 58-bed College Grove site will care for non-coronavirus patients who do not need high-level care, to free up beds in public hospitals.
Both are expected to be operational next month and the Government indicated it would announce more extra facilities.
Health Minister Stephen Wade said the plan was for the RAH to treat adult COVID-19 patients, Flinders to care for high-risk pregnant women, and the Women’s and Children’s Hospital to treat paediatric patients.
“We will continue to engage with the private sector and all elements of the health sector to make sure South Australians impacted by the virus can receive the care they need,” he said. Premier Steven Marshall said the Government was also expanding intensive care units across the state.
“It is part of our plan to get ahead of the game before the peak,” Mr Marshall said. “Our goal is to slow the growth of coronavirus. We want to reduce the peak down and push it as far into the future as we possibly can, so we are in a much better position to make sure we can deal with the peak when it arrives.”
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Asked if he could guarantee SA would not end up like Italy, which is locked down with a soaring death toll, Mr Marshall said: “I can. The reality is we have great mitigation strategies right across the country, as well as here is South Australia.
“We are delaying the peak, reducing what that peak is going to be, and simultaneously massively increasing our ability to deal with it. We are not going to see the scenes in the northern hemisphere like Italy but we all need to work together to make sure we can slow the spread.”
In other developments:
SA HEALTH opened a new COVID-19 test clinic at Victor Harbor, while SA Pathology has processed 12,000 tests.
CHILDREN’S paracetamol will be sold behind pharmacy counters.
ASTHMA medication Ventolin will be limited to one purchase a person, and some prescription medicines limited to one month’s supply.
DR SPURRIER endorsed 24-hour shop trading to reduce transmission risks in crowds.
