By Jessica Anstice
When the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) called St John of God Hospital with an urgent request to accommodate 30 aged care residents with Covid-19, the Berwick hospital’s team immediately swung straight into action.
St John of God south east Melbourne CEO Lisa Norman took the call from DHHS on 28 July and was told she had 45 minutes to prepare for 30 residents – some positive for Covid-19 and some negative.
“I told them to give me two hours to which I was told, ‘You have 45 minutes Lisa. This is serious and it is not negotiable.’,” she recalled.
A short time later, physiotherapist Maddy Williams saw Ms Normal in scrubs, pushing a trolley down a hall.
She thought, “Oh, something’s happening, something’s going down – that’s not normal.”
With months on end of scenario testing, planning and preparing, the Berwick John of God Hospital team were well equipped to take immediate action in securing a unit that was solely dedicated to Covid-positive patients.
St John of God Hospital mission integration direction Rhonda O’Connor said it involved staff from all different areas of the hospital coming together to clear a ward, move patients, clean rooms and welcome and comfort those who has been evacuated from aged care homes.
“Everyone just sort of stopped and went, ‘Okay, well what do you want me to do?’,” Ms O’Connor said proudly.
“I didn’t hear anyone complain,” she added, in reference to having to wear PPE (personal protection equipment) for hours on end.
“You couldn’t even take a sip of water. You would have to wait for your break – sometimes that would be five to six hours away.”
Enrolled nurse, Michelle Delaney, selflessly volunteered to put herself on the front line to care for Covid-positive residents in need.
Ms Delaney said she never questioned working in a Covid-19 unit.
“It was just a question of the logistics of where I was going to live during this time,” she said, given she did not want to risk the safety of her family.
She was one of many caregivers to sacrifice time with their own immediate families to come to the aid of those in need.
Recognising this inherent risk, St John of God Health Care organised for their caregivers to be relocated to hotel accommodation for the entire time they would be working in the Covid-19 unit.
“I got a call on Wednesday or Thursday afternoon saying they urgently needed caregivers to come across because there weren’t enough hands on deck,” St John of God Greensborough intake health coordinator Renate Deveson said.
“By Friday I had my hotel booked and I had fully moved in by Sunday.
Ms Deveson lived in a hotel, isolated from family and friends, for the following six weeks.
Of the 30 residents who were transferred into the Berwick hospital’s care, 24 were positive for Covid-19, 22 were confused, seven required hoist transfers and many needed complete assistance with meals and toileting.
To complicate things further, caring for the individual needs of each resident was very challenging given they arrived with only the clothes on their backs.
Ms Norman said there was limited information given the rapid evacuation that was required.
There was also no confirmation of who was positive for Covid-19 and who wasn’t.
“It was a distressing situation for the patients and their families,” Ms Norman said.
“Residents were transferred without their gait aids, glasses or medications.”
However, organisations near and far such as Coles, Berwick Pharmacy, Coca Cola and Mount Franklin Water, Gold 104.3FM, The Skincare Company and Dominos answered the call for help by dropping off toiletries for residents and caregivers.
Food and drinks were delivered to support the teams caring for patients as many had lost weight and fluids while wearing PPE.
The hospital focused on ensuring that contact was made daily with worried families to reassure them their relatives were safe and being well cared for.
Despite the challenges and the loss of lives, the St John of God Health Care team came together to overcome what seemed like an insurmountable task to begin with.
In doing so, it recognised early in the process that accommodating the aged-care patients within the Berwick hospital on Kangan Drive was only a short term solution.
Quickly, the team turned its focus to recommissioning the former St John of God Berwick Hospital site on Gibb Street in order to look after patients who were no longer testing positive for Covid-19 but required care before returning to their aged care facility.
“The Gibb Street location has always been an integral part of Berwick’s community health offerings,” Ms Norman said.
“And considering it was there to offer care during the pneumonic influenza epidemic over 100 years ago, it seemed to be the very fabric of this hospital to respond to an urgent community need yet again.”
Within a short two-week period, the hospital, which had not been used since it closed in early 2018, was repurposed to begin accepting aged care patients, with the first arriving from the Kangan Drive location on 17 August.
More than 50 St John of Care Health Care workers from across the state also answered the call for help, leaving their regular places of work and homes to remain at the Gibb Street site until the last of the patients were discharged on 24 September.
“What I look back with is, how proud I am of the team effort,” nursing and patient experience director Allison Merrigan said.
“Not once did I think that we couldn’t do it. When someone’s energies were flagging there was someone else there ready to lift you up and to keep you going.
“And that’s what I am really proud of at the end of the day.”
