The health system in Victoria will be boosted by $100 million support package and the elective surgeries of 7000 patients fast tracked in a bid to combat the coronavirus.
Premier Daniel Andrews today unveiled the extra funding as the state's coronavirus cases rose by eight to 57.
Mr Andrews said the aim is to push elective surgeries through the public and private systems before the coronavirus pandemic peaks.
"This
is a really important investment at a critical time. So what this $100
million allows us to do is 7,000 more urgent elective surgery patients,
so those more serious cases, will be fast tracked," he said.
"Those
surgeries will be performed over the next few weeks using both expanded
public hospital capacity and also our partnership with a number of
private hospitals as well. This just makes commonsense, let's get in
early, get those surgeries done before the peak of COVID-19."
The state government is also planning to open new facilities at Casey Hospital in Melbourne weeks ahead of schedule to ease the strain on the health system.
"We
have a very big hospital building program and one of those projects is a
new tower out at Casey Hospital, one of our busiest hospitals," Mr
Andrews said.
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"There
is funding in this package, some $30 million, to open that tower. Those
additional wards, 140 beds, both 128 general beds and 12 ICU (Intensive
Care Unit) beds, to open those in the next couple of weeks well ahead
of when they would have normally opened."
Additionally,
the state government will spend an $10 million for extra medical
supplies, including 100 million extra gloves, 10 million additional
masks and 1.5 million extra gowns.
Victoria's Chief Medical Officer Brett Sutton said the state's eight new cases included a teacher at the elite Carey Baptist Grammar School in Melbourne.
Meanwhile, Tasmania has confirmed its sixth coronavirus case after a woman in her 60s tested positive.
She
was identified as a close contact during the public health
investigation of a previous Tasmanian case, who had recently travelled
overseas, acting director of public health Scott McKeown said on today.
The woman and all the other five cases in Tasmania are in a stable condition and remain in isolation receiving medical care.
-Reported with AAP
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