General News
29 July, 2022
Aged care centre rallies against outbreak
RURAL Northwest Health has confirmed a Covid outbreak at Yarriambiack Lodge.
RURAL Northwest Health has confirmed a Covid outbreak at Yarriambiack Lodge.
Acting Chief Executive Jo Martin said the health service would not be disclosing the number of cases at the Lodge, but said it was a mixture of both staff and residents that had caught the virus.
"The residents have been very closely monitored by our doctors and clinical staff," Ms Martin said.
"Most of them are moving around and still able to come out of their rooms."
The origin of the outbreak at the Warracknabeal Aged Care residential facility has not been disclosed.
"We've had visitors coming into the Yarriambiack Lodge prior to finding a positive case," Ms Martin said.
"All of our residents do a Covid screening every day," Ms Martin said.
"We were doing all the precautions as a public health unit, we had visitors coming in with masks, and we followed all regulations.
"It would be virtually impossible to identify whether it was a staff member or a visitor (who began the outbreak)."
Ms Martin said the morale amongst residents and staff had been quite good despite the obvious concerns of an outbreak.
"At the forefront of our mind is residents' health and wellbeing, and we're making sure their families are kept informed."
Ms Martin confirmed Rural Northwest Health had put in a request to be considered for Australian Defence Force help to be deployed to the Lodge about a week ago - but it was still awaiting a response.
Ms Martin described the health care response as “phenomenal”.
"(An outbreak) puts a lot of strain on the whole team,' she told the Herald.
"It's not just the clinical team, (it's) our cleaning services, our environmental services, our catering team and extra additional requirements.
"We put out a message to our team to see who could help in additional areas and we're being inundated with everyone wanting to help.
"We've got people folding residents' washing from our Community Health team, we've got our admin people arranging food delivery.
"It's been a great team response, it's really (what is) keeping everyone going."
The remainder of the Northwest Rural Health Warracknabeal site is operating normally with masks and other preventative factors being employed.
The news of the outbreak comes amidst the announcement on July 28 that the Yarriambiack region has the highest percentage of COVID cases amongst its population.
Yarriambiack is also below the state average for the number of residents that have received their third dose of a COVID vaccine.