Coronavirus: Tasmanian hospital closures force 5000 into quarantine
Two deceased Ruby Princess passengers are the likely source of a cluster that’s closed two hospitals and left up to 5000 Tasmanians quarantined.
Three deceased passengers of the Ruby Princess treated at Tasmania’s North West Regional Hospital are strongly suspected of being the source of the COVID-19 cluster that has forced the closure of two hospitals, left up to 5000 Tasmanians quarantined in their homes and put the state’s health system under intense pressure.
The outbreak has been responsible for half of Tasmania’s 144 coronavirus cases and the infection of 43 healthcare workers, Premier Peter Gutwein said on Monday.
He said he had been forced to take the “extreme measure” of a two-week shutdown of the North West Regional Hospital and the North West Private Hospital and the quarantining of 1000 healthcare staff, along with their families, a total of about 5000 people, to prevent further infections.
Non-essential retail outlets were also being closed for the same time period.
The scale of the response and the impact on the community have raised serious questions about how the outbreak began.
“We know the first person managed at the hospital with coronavirus infection was a person from the Ruby Princess cruise who sadly died, as did another person from the Ruby Princess a week or so later,” Tasmania’s director of public health, Mark Veitch, said on Monday. “So that’s obviously one of our strongest leads for looking for the source of the infection.”
Tasmanian AMA president John Burgess said while the investigation into the origin of the outbreak was ongoing, “we do know there were a number of passengers of the Ruby Princess cared for in Tasmania, and in the northwest health system in particular”.
“Given the source of the virus is likely from overseas, and given we’ve had Ruby Princess passengers in the system, it’s certainly a possibility,” Professor Burgess said.
Opposition federal health spokesman Chris Bowen was more definitive.
“This all started … with the Ruby Princess,” he said. “The northwest Tasmania cluster has been caused by the Ruby Princess. It’s again a reminder that the Ruby Princess is not a NSW problem. It’s a national scandal.”
Five people have already died from coronavirus in Tasmania, four of them patients at the North West Regional Hospital.
Three were passengers on the Ruby Princess, including a woman aged in her 70s who died on Sunday and 80-year-old Bill Bracken, who died last week.
Professor Burgess said the quarantining of 1000 health workers, about 20 per cent of the state’s total, “will have an extreme impact on the state’s healthcare system”.
“This is particularly so given the northwest of Tasmania is a regional area with an older population, higher levels of comorbidities, and they will be more vulnerable to COVID-19 if there’s a lack of readily available healthcare services,” he said.
“But it is clearly necessary to stamp out the disease before it spreads to more healthcare workers, and patients.”
Mr Gutwein said he had asked for federal assistance to provide ongoing health services into the region.
“I’m pleased that we’ve made a request to the federal government to provide further resources, and we will see an AUSMAT team, an Australian medical assistance team, key leaders supported by the ADF, coming into the state over the course of this week to help us deliver the medical services that we need.
“We need to get on top of this. One death is too many. Five is distressing, and unfortunately there will be more.”
Healthcare workers in the northwest continue to bear the brunt of the pandemic, with the state’s Health Minister, Sarah Courtney, revealing they accounted for eight of the 11 most recent recorded cases.
The hospitals will undergo a “deep clean” by the Australian Medical Assistance Team and Australian Defence Force personnel after all patients are shifted to other facilities, including the Mersey Community Hospital in Latrobe, some 60km away.
The closure of the hospitals will inconvenience pregnant women, who will need to travel a further two hours to Launceston for hospital care.
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