By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Residents have been evacuated from a Covid-infected aged-care home in Dandenong North.
Twenty-one residents at the 95-bed Outlook Gardens had been transferred to South Eastern Private Hospital in Mulgrave, Premier Daniel Andrews said on 29 July.
Monash Health nurses have also been working shifts in the facility, which is linked to at least 44 Covid-19 cases.
Monash Health was working “very carefully and closely” with the home in “a very challenging set of circumstances”, Mr Andrews said.
Outlook Gardens was among four aged care homes listed by Mr Andrews as requiring hospital nurse support and resident evacuations.
At short notice, nurses had filled more than 400 shifts at aged care homes – “a massive task”, Mr Andrews said.
In the meantime, all non-urgent Category 2 elective surgery at hospitals was paused to make room for aged-care transfers.
Generally “planned” transfers went to private hospitals, and “emergency” transfers to public hospitals, Mr Andrews said.
The day before, the State Government announced the health-care intervention in aged-care, declaring “some private providers are struggling to maintain staffing levels and basic standards of care”.
Mr Andrews said at the time that the homes weren’t run by the Victorian Government but “we will do everything we can to take care of them”.
“The Commonwealth has asked for our help and that’s exactly what they’ll get – we will send in our public health teams, our nurses and other support staff to make sure residents are safe.”
Covid-19 has been linked to 804 cases in more than 80 Victorian aged care homes.
Meanwhile, 295 new cases were reported in Victoria on 29 July, with nine further deaths. Seven of them were in “private aged care”, Mr Andrews said.
In hospital, there are 307 hospitalised patients, including 41 in intensive care. There are overall 4770 active Victorian cases, including 502 health care workers.
In Greater Dandenong, there were 10 new cases, including four linked to Outlook Gardens.
Outlook Gardens has not returned the Star Journal’s calls.
