13 May 2020
Following International Nurses Day, it’s a good news week for hundreds of nurses left without work after elective surgeries were shut down in March.
South Australia will become the first state to begin to fully restore elective surgery from midnight tonight with the lifting of the Appropriate Surgery Direction under the Emergency Management Declaration.
According to the SA Government, the wait list for elective surgeries has tripled during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is projected that our public hospitals will be able to ramp back up to normal elective surgery levels by early to mid-next month, as long as it remains safe to do so, while restrictions placed on dentistry will also be lifted.
“South Australians’ outstanding progress in containing COVID-19 thus far and a substantial increase in the stockpile of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) has enabled the ramping up of elective surgery,” said Premier Steven Marshall.
Health Minister Stephen Wade said a decision was made in March to limit elective surgeries, treatments and procedures to urgent and essential cases only, in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19, ensure patient and staff safety and protect levels of PPE and hospital capacity “in case COVID-19 overran the health system’’.
“To enable the full return of elective surgery, 48,000 surgical N95 masks and one million Level 3 face masks have been secured ahead of the production of 45 million face masks through local company Detmold,’’ Mr Wade said.
“Over the past fortnight both the public and private sector have increased their surgery and procedure work schedules.
“We are now ready to move to restart our full elective surgery lists to ensure we can reduce the number of people currently waiting."
ANMF (SA Branch) CEO/Secretary Adj. Associate Professor Elizabeth Dabars AM said the return to full elective surgery was “welcome news”.
“The elective surgery shutdown has brought economic pain and stress for hundreds of nurses. We hope this week’s good news will see them back in the workforce far sooner than later,’’ she said.