Ballarat Base Hospital becomes fourth regional Vic hospital in a month to declare code yellow

Ballarat become the fourth regional hospital to declare a code yellow in recent times.

Ballarat Base Hospital. Photo: Chloe Smith

The code yellow declared at Ballarat Base Hospital has been “cautiously” stood down after nearly a week in effect.

Ballarat Base Hospital became the fourth regional hospital to declare a code yellow in about a month on April 21.

The internal emergency code was declared because of a lack of beds caused by Covid “outbreaks”, and meant there could be delays for people presenting to hospital.

On April 20, a patient from outside the hospital’s dedicated Covid ward tested positive for the virus, which put that patient’s ward into quarantine.

The next morning, the same thing happened at another ward.

“Both of those circumstances are classified as Covid outbreaks,” Acute Operations executive director Ben Kelly said.

“What we’ve done since then is to consolidate those patients who have tested positive into the respiratory ward, or the Covid ward, and we continue to monitor closely those patients who are in those ward environments.”

He said the code declaration was the first in at least two years in Ballarat.

“Certainly we haven’t triggered a code yellow in the context of the pandemic, so it’s probably greater than two years,” he said.

“The state was in code brown in January, including ourselves, but that was a statewide code brown. This is a local escalation of code.”

On Tuesday, Mr Kelly said the hospital had managed the “significant demand” and so was removing the code and returning to its regular operations.

“We would like to thank our team members for their significant contributions in the lead up to and for the duration of the code,” he said.

“The efforts of each part of the workforce to deliver the care and the practical actions to keep our patients and staff safe has been commendable.

“We also thank the community for considering the most appropriate avenue for their healthcare during this time.”

Some wards at the hospital remain in quarantine, and visitor restrictions are still in place.

On April 22, there were 17 Covid-positive patients at Ballarat Base Hospital, one of which was in the intensive care unit.

Thirty-two patients had not tested positive, but were being monitored for Covid as part of the hospital’s quarantine arrangements.

Hospitals in Albury-Wodonga, Shepparton, and Wangaratta declared code yellows in recent weeks.