Report reveals Canberra’s Covid-19 surge centre unfit to treat Covid-19 patients
A 2021 review of Canberra’s Garran Surge Centre found the facility was not fit to treat Covid-19 patients amid concerns about ventilation.
Canberra Star
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Documents have revealed Canberra’s $14m Garran Surge Centre was not appropriate for treating infectious Covid-19 patients.
The Canberra Times reported documents obtained by Freedom of Information laws revealed an October 2021 review recommended $60,000-$75,000 of upgrades to make the centre appropriate to use as a Covid-19 ward.
The Centre, located adjacent to The Canberra Hospital, was built by Aspen Medical in April 2020 during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The centre closed last week after being used as a testing and vaccination site during the height of the pandemic.
Speaking to members of the press on Monday ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the centre was built to “supplement our emergency departments” if hospitals became overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients.
She said this was distinct from being built to be a Covid-19 ward and described the criticisms levelled against the decision to not upgrade the centre as “revisionist”.
“(The Garran Surge Centre) was built very quickly to deal with a circumstance where around the world we were seeing thousands and thousands of people dying and emergency departments being overwhelmed,” she said.
“To then go back in some kind of revisionist way and say ‘well when it was built in 37 days in April 2020 it should have taken notice of some standards that were subsequently implemented somewhere else down the line when we knew that Covid-19 was airborne’ is absolutely ridiculous.”
Ms Stephen-Smith said if the government was still considering using the facility as an emergency department in September 2021, they would have upgraded the facility.
“We always said when we built this centre that the best outcome would be that we never need it, and that's what happened,” she said.
Liberal MLA Leanne Castley has called on Ms Stephen-Smith to “come clean” on “what she knew about deficiencies at the Centre, when she knew about them, and why she didn’t rectify them”.
“The Minister should have been aware of these deficiencies and made the recommended upgrades prior to Omicron and the winter 2022 Covid-19 spike,” Ms Castley said
“This shows a blatant disregard for patient and staff welfare.
“While the Garran Surge Centre stayed unfit for purpose, transmission was occurring in Canberra hospitals, with 19 known cases in November 2022 alone.”
Ms Castley said in July last year she asked why the centre was not being used as a pop-up facility.
She said health officials told her the centre was not used in that way due to a lack of staff.
“The ACT Labor-Greens government spent $14 million on a facility that was actually unsuitable for treating Covid-19 patients, but Canberrans were told it was not being used because of staff shortages,” she said.
Ms Castley accused the government of being “so non-transparent” during the peak of the pandemic.
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