ADF and AUSMAT teams hand hospital back to Tasmanian staff

Around 20 ‘cleared’ workers are ready to move back into the hospital at the centre of Tasmania’s coronavirus outbreak, as emergency ADF and AUSMAT health teams fly home.

THE imported medical crews who came to Tasmania’s aid in early April are leaving Burnie on Thursday now local health care workers have returned to a decontaminated North West Regional Hospital.

A specialist medico crew made up of AUSMAT members and ADF personnel flew to Tasmania to staff the hospital’s Emergency Department, which was closed for deep cleaning as the number of positive coronavirus cases – and deaths – linked with the Burnie facility climbed.

About 4500 staff members, patients and their families went into quarantine. The ED was then reopened and staffed by the imported crews.

Colonel David Hughes said in the two weeks the crews were on site, 454 presentations came into the Emergency Department.

“They found it very professionally rewarding. For half of those who came to Burnie it was the first time they had worked in an emergency department,” Colonel Hughes said.

Australian Defence Force health professionals discuss the day's schedule in the North West Regional Hospital in Burnie Tasmania, after the hospital's formal handover from contracted cleaning personnel, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was also the first time the ADF has been called upon to operate a domestic hospital.

“I am going to Burnie to farewell the teas and will make sure I pass on the expressed gratitude of the entire Tasmanian community.”

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Ms Courtney said about 20 cleared staff – nurses, and administration workers – were ready to move back into the hospital.

Tasmania has now recorded 218 positive coronavirus cases – 145 linked directly with the outbreak at the NWRH.

The North West Regional Hospital is seen closed in Burnie, Tasmania, Tuesday, April 14, 2020. (AAP Image/Simon Sturzaker)

Three of the latest four cases are heath care workers in the North West while another, in the State’s north, is a close contact of one of those workers.

The case in the north is the first to be recorded since early April.

A report on what caused the virus outbreak at the facility is due to be handed down Thursday morning.

Ms Courtney said all staff returning to work onsite had been tested for the virus and returned negative result and received extra training on the wearing of PPE.

“They will be screened every time they come to work,’ Ms Courtney said.

That screening will involve a temperature check.

Testing continues to ramp up in Tasmania with 861 presentations to clinics across Tasmania on Tuesday – 617 in the North West.