Page 767 - Week 03 - Thursday, 2 April 2020
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There is also work going on at a national level to look at how we can ensure that we have enough ventilators across the nation. That work includes work with ResMed to look at what they can do in terms of production not of invasive ventilation but of non-invasive machines that may be appropriate to support either COVID patients or other patients if we indeed reach the kind of peak where our health systems are really struggling. What we are trying to do, of course, is flatten the curve so that we do not reach that situation.
MR WALL: Minister, when will the ACT health system have capacity to meet what has been modelled as the worst-case scenario?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Mr Wall for the supplementary question. As we announced today, the Aspen temporary emergency department that will supplement the Canberra Hospital facility will be up and running in May. Bernadette McDonald is working very closely with the private hospital sector to ensure that we really understand all of that capacity. We have already made the move to delay category 3 and non-urgent category 2 elective surgeries to free up space and to enable the health system to prepare. We are continuing to expand that capacity. By May we will have Aspen up and running and will be looking at the type of capacity that I have talked about today.
But I really need to emphasise that this is an ongoing piece of work. The numbers that I have provided today are today’s numbers, but we may identify additional sources of equipment, additional spaces and additional things in the day clinics and the private surgeries that Canberra Health Services is now working with to try to build that territory-wide approach.
Hospitals–intensive care beds
MISS C BURCH: My question is to the Minister for Health. Minister, how many ICU beds are currently available for use in the broader Canberra region?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I do not have those figures from the Southern Health Network on me, so I will take that question on notice and come back to Miss Burch with an answer.
MISS C BURCH: Minister, how much additional intensive care unit capacity is the government planning to use in the coming months?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I think I probably answered that in my previous answers. I am not quite sure what further information I can provide to Miss Burch, so I refer her to my previous answers.
MRS KIKKERT: Minister, what contingency planning has been done for the possibility of our intensive care bed capacity being overstretched?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: Again, I think I have provided comprehensive answers to the first set of questions. I am not sure that I have got much to add to that.
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