Coronavirus: ‘Operational error’ to blame for infected nurse working across Melbourne hospitals

Jeroen Weimar says he’s ‘very concerned and disappointed’ that a nurse was able to work across two Melbourne hospitals while infected.

Victoria's COVID-19 Commander Jeroen Weimar. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Victorian Covid-19 logistics chief Jeroen Weimar has blamed an “operational error” for the fact that a nurse worked across two hospitals while infected with ­coronavirus.

The news came as Victoria ­recorded no new coronavirus cases in the 24 hours to Thursday, ahead of restrictions easing from midnight.

The nurse received a positive test result late on Tuesday after caring for three elderly Covid ­patients during shifts at the ­Epping Private Hospital in Melbourne’s north on June 9 and 14.

The patients had been relocated to the hospital a fortnight ago, having contracted the virus at the Arcare aged-care facility in the western suburb of Maidstone.

On Thursday, Mr Weimar ­revealed the nurse had also worked shifts on June 11 and 12 at the nearby Northern Hospital, where 22 staff have consequently been ordered to quarantine.

A further 25 patients and five staff members at the Northern Hospital’s vaccination clinic have been ordered to isolate for a ­fortnight, after the nurse received her second jab there on Monday.

Conceding that he was “exceptionally concerned” that the nurse had been able to work across multiple hospitals while caring for the state’s only three hospitalised Covid patients, Mr Weimar said he had conducted a series of meetings on Wednesday night with the chief executives of the hospitals and other supporting agencies “to ensure we re-establish a far more rigorous regime in place to look after these patients”.

“I’m very concerned and disappointed that this has occurred, and I think the team at Epping Private recognise the severity of that, and are responding appropriately,” Mr Weimar said.

He said the Covid patients had been sent to Epping Private ­because it had been “earmarked” by the health department as being appropriate for aged-care residents, with work done by the ­department’s infection prevention and control team, WorkSafe and other agencies to mitigate transmission risks.

“This appears to be obviously an operational error being made at Epping Private that allowed the roster to be run in a way, and the attestations for staff to be done in a certain way, that meant that we have a staff nurse working across two different sites,” Mr Weimar said. “It shouldn’t have been ­allowed to happen.”

Mr Weimar said genomic ­sequencing due back on Thursday afternoon was expected to confirm that the nurse had contracted the virus from one of the patients.

“I understand there were some complexities about the way the cases are being supported in ­Epping Private that led possibly to an (infection prevention and control) breach,” he said.

“The rules we have are in place (are) to prevent these kinds of things happening, and we’re working very closely with the team to ensure they don’t do it again.”

A tenth of the almost 1000 healthcare workers who contracted coronavirus during Victoria’s second wave were staff at the Northern Hospital.

The hospital had the third-highest number of infected staff of any hospital in the state, with 95 cases to the end of September, compared with 139 at the Royal Melbourne and 115 at St ­Vincent’s.

Mr Weimar said contact tracers had identified nine primary close contacts for the nurse at the Epping Private Hospital, all of whom were quarantining for 14 days.

He said a further 25 staff had been isolated as a precaution, 22 of whom had so far tested negative and been permitted to return to work.

“We will continue a daily testing program at Epping Private for the foreseeable future until we clear through this outbreak and until those patients have returned to Arcare,” Mr Weimar said.

The health department published a list of exposure sites linked to the nurse on Wednesday and Thursday, including a cinema at Crown casino and the Barkly Square shopping centre in Brunswick in Melbourne’s inner north.