Kerry Chant to take ‘well deserved’ break when NSW scraps remaining restrictions

NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant will take her first extended break in two years of heading the pandemic response when the state scraps the last remaining COVID-19 restrictions.

Government officials confirmed Deputy Chief Health Officer Marianne Gale will step into the role from February 28 when Dr Chant departs for three weeks’ annual leave. It will be her longest break since the pandemic began, after taking just two days last year.

“Like her colleagues in NSW Health, Dr Chant has worked extremely hard during the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and is looking forward to spending some time with her family during this planned leave,” a NSW Health spokesperson said.

NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant will take leave for three weeks from the end of February, with Deputy Chief Health Officer Dr Marianne Gale stepping into the role for that time. Credit: Edwina Pickles

The bulk of the state’s pandemic restrictions will end on February 27, including masks in shops and offices, density limits and QR codes. Public transport services will also return to a regular timetable at the end of the month.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said Dr Chant has “worked flat out for over two years on the pandemic as well as enormous work before that in public health. She works 18 to 20-hour days, 7 days a week. Any leave she wants, she should get, and we should double it. It is a long-awaited and extremely well-deserved break.”

The easing of COVID-19 measures is expected to coincide with the return of elective surgery. Non-urgent operations are expected to return to 75 per cent of pre-pandemic capacity at Sydney’s metropolitan hospitals in early March.

Mr Hazzard said some hospitals were “well advanced with plans to restart elective surgery,” noting that Randwick and Westmead children’s hospitals had already switched on non-urgent operations and day surgeries had commenced at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

“We are moving quickly to get elective surgery up to speed. By the first or second week in March public hospitals should be back to at least 75 per cent capacity, so it’s looking very positive,” Mr Hazzard said.

“But the caveat is that all we would need is a flip-up in the numbers or an increased number of people in ICU and that could be reversed.”

The state’s health system is set to confront a backlog of thousands of patients waiting for operations such as joint replacements and cataract surgeries when surgery resumes.

It has been a bruising week for the health ministry, with thousands of NSW nurses staging a mass walk-out over pay, staffing ratios and working conditions that have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

The first strike action in a decade followed the surprise resignation of NSW Health secretary Elizabeth Koff after six years as head of the agency. Her replacement is yet to be named.

COVID-19 hospitalisations fell below 1500 for the first time in six weeks on Wednesday, with 1478 people with the virus on wards.

All category 2 and 3 surgeries were suspended in early January as hospitals faced unprecedented staff shortages and an influx of coronavirus patients. About 1900 healthcare workers are off work due to COVID-19 isolation, down from more than 6000 in isolation in January.

Nurses and nursing staff protested in Sydney this week. Credit: James Alcock

Royal Australasian College of Surgeons NSW chair Dr Payal Mukherjee said patients waiting for category 2 operations, including thyroid, gall bladder surgeries and joint replacements, were “piling up in much high numbers” than during the first pandemic wave in 2020.

“If we stop elective surgery again it will be a disaster. We have people needing urgent gall stone operations, tonsillectomies, sinus surgeries and eardrum repairs,” Dr Mukherjee said.

Last week non-urgent elective surgery requiring an overnight stay returned to 75 per cent capacity in private hospitals and public hospitals in regional and rural areas.

In the first NSW parliamentary sitting week of the year, the nurses and midwives walk-out attracted support across the chamber, including from recently dumped agriculture minister Adam Marshall.

Mr Marshall on Tuesday said the strike was a “last-gasp plea” of a workforce “on the brink of collapse,” describing his own Northern Tablelands electorate where hospital emergency departments have been without a GP or medical officer for at least a month.

“NSW Health cannot honestly believe the current system is adequate or working. It simply is not.”

In question time on Wednesday, Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the recent regional health inquiry had highlighted challenging issues in getting GPs and medical staff into regional areas.

Labor health spokesman Ryan Park said the government needed to listen to the concerns of the state’s health workers.“It is not often you will see me singing off the same song sheet as a Nationals MP, however in this instance Mr Marshall is absolutely correct.”

The opposition also used parliament on Wednesday to call for stronger workers’ compensation protections for frontline workers who contract COVID-19.

NSW president of the Australian Medical Association Danielle McMullen said it was critical that elective surgeries return as soon as possible, with thousands of patients needing outpatient care for lung function testing, radiology, colonoscopies and endometriosis surgery.

“People have been waiting too long, and we can’t keep seeing elective surgery as optional,” Dr McMullen said. “There are also surgical trainees who have not been able to experience training and manual practice skill.”

The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.