Page 2607 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 21 September 2022
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hard work by our justice health staff and corrections officers to make sure that they are able to use PPE appropriately and to make sure that people are vaccinated. In fact, we have had amazingly high rates of first-dose vaccination amongst people in the AMC—often 70 to 80 per cent receiving their first-dose vaccination. At 5 September, 75 per cent of people had received their second-dose vaccination, 55 per cent had received their first booster, and 22 per cent had received a second booster. These are really amazing numbers, and that is thanks to many clinics run by justice health services and by Winnunga to make sure that people are able to be vaccinated. Within Bimberi, the use of PPE and vaccination by many staff members has helped to reduce the risk of transmission there. As at 5 September, we have no cases of COVID in Bimberi. Similarly, in our acute mental health unit the use of PPE and providing vaccinations to inpatients has helped to reduce the risk of transmission of COVID in a very high-risk place.
There were times, too, when almost every aged-care facility in this city had COVID cases, particularly during 2021, but today there are only a handful of residential aged-care facilities which have cases, and it is generally only a few cases at a time. That shows that the use of PPE, and vaccinations for those people who are most at risk, make a real difference in reducing transmission and improving health outcomes.
I would also like to thank Winnunga for its work in making sure that people in our community are vaccinated, as well as people in the AMC, and for looking out for people’s mental health and wellbeing while they have experienced lockdowns at the AMC. They have also done some great work in making sure that people know that they can get a telehealth appointment so that they can access antivirals if they do test positive in the community. I would also like to thank them for making sure that I am vaccinated.
Socioeconomic situations have a big impact on people’s health outcomes from COVID. We have had more cases of people who tested positive in the outer suburbs than in the inner suburbs in the ACT. That is why it has been so important that we have commonwealth support with payments for people who are in isolation and are not able to take sick leave or access paid work, so that people are able to quarantine and reduce transmission in the community. It is also why the ACT government put so much effort into making sure that we had food relief programs to support people in situations where they were not able to engage in paid work.
The Canberra Relief Network, which ran until 12 February, transitioned to supporting local food pantries after that date, and that is an important way of supporting not only food relief, but also people’s ability to connect with other support services that those local food pantries might be able to help with and ensure that people are able to access all of the kinds of support that they might need in difficult circumstances. It is why the ACT government has committed over $475,000 over four years in the 2021-22 budget to continue supporting our local food pantries through a database and a dedicated project coordinator for the food security network. This is an example of community-led and government supported recovery.
I would like to thank CSD and Volunteering ACT, the SES and Veterans Volunteers through the Disaster Relief Australia organisation for their work in supporting the
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