Advisers ‘gaslight’ medicos on Covid

Peak medical organisations and health and safety groups are calling for an independent body to replac­e the federal Infection Control Advisory Group.

Infection Control Advisory Group chairwoman Lyn Gilbert.

Peak medical organisations and health and safety groups are calling for an independent body to replac­e the federal Infection Control Advisory Group, as doctors continue to express their anger at being “victim-blamed” for the high rate of COVID-19 infections among healthcare workers.

The Australian Society of Anaesthe­tists said it was “fast losing­ confidence” in the advisory group over what it alleged were inadequate guidelines on personal protective equipment and a failure to acknowledge airborne transmission as a major source of spread of COVID-19.

ICEG chairwoman Lyn Gilbert infuriated many healthcare workers last week when she said some of the practitioners who were most critical of the committee’s guidelines were doctors who “until recently had little interest in routine infection control designed­ to protect patients”.

“They are quite rightly concerned when they feel themselves to be at risk, but a lot of people who’ve never been experts have suddenly become experts,” Professo­r Gilbert said.

ASA president Suzy Nou called for ICEG — whose members are appointed by the federal government to advise the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee — to be replaced with an independent infection control body.

“After we flattened the curve, we asked you to stop calling us heroes­ and please provide us with the protection we need to address infection control concerns,” Dr Nou said. “Now that we have flattened the second curve, we ask you to please stop gaslighting us. An apology may not be enough.

“I think an independent body needs to be established. If I wrote an anaesthetic guideline, and 2500 patients had a complication, I would very quickly be looking at changing that guideline. It’s just unacceptable.”

There have been more than 3500 coronavirus infections in Victorian healthcare workers — more than 2600 acquired at work.

Many doctors are critical of ICEG guidelines which mandate that only a surgical mask is required in routine care of patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19, but that a P2 or N95 respirator may be worn where there are high numbers of suspect­ed or confirmed COVID patients and a risk that a patient may exhibit “challenging behaviour”. Critics say all healthcare workers should wear respirators at all times when dealing with suspected or confirmed coronavirus patients.

Australian Institute of Health and Safety chief executive David Clarke called on Thursday for the immediate reform of ICEG. He pointed to Professor Gilbert’s com­ments, along with those of by ICEG member Peter Collignon that there was an ­“almost hysteria” about aerosol transmission.

“The comments were ignorant, arrogant and show how out of touch with reality the ICEG is,” Mr Clarke said. “These comments don’t just sit in isolation.

“A coalition of expert organisations has been trying for months to bring to the attention of the ICEG the fact that critically important workplace health and safety practices are all but missing in many hospitals.

“The ICEG has completely ignored the advice.

“To demonstrate just how little­ they understand what is happening on the ground, they are now blaming the victims: more than 2100 nurses who were infected in the COVID outbreak.’’

Mr Clarke said that on the matter of aerosol transmission, “there is no hysteria: there is concern … The ICEG are amongst the last groups in the country to recog­nise the bleeding obvious — aerosol transmission is a risk, and it was the cause of an unknown number of hospital infection­s — unknown because it was not acknowledg­ed and assessed­.”

President of the National Asso­ciation of Specialist Obstet­ricians and Gynaecologists Gino Pecoraro also expressed concern at Professor Gilbert’s recent comments. “It’s almost like she was blaming the doctors and nurses themselves for getting infected,” he said. “That’s not very fair and it’s not very professional.”

Professor Collignon said that while N95 or P2 masks were always indicated when doctors and nurses were performing aerosol-generating procedures or working in areas of high risk of transmission, there was no evidence that wearing respirator­s at all times resulted in fewer healthcare worker infections.

“None of the evidence shows that wearing an N95 mask gives you better protection than wearing a surgical mask,” he said, defending the ICEG as made up of some of the nation’s most qualified experts on infection control.