Page 942 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 May 2020
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equipment in an environment of disrupted supply chains, ensuring that our services remained well resourced and staffed to respond to the pandemic. The decision to ease restrictions on elective surgeries and procedures provides for 25 per cent of capacity to be brought back online. The deputy health controller, as head of the clinical health emergency command centre, has issued guidelines to hospital facilities in the ACT for the resumption of elective surgery.
Additional measures to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in our community have included introducing visitor restrictions at key sites, including Canberra Hospital, the University of Canberra Hospital and Calvary Public Hospital. Visitor restrictions have also been introduced at residential aged-care facilities, in line with the Chief Health Officer’s directions.
The ACT government is committed to providing all appropriate resources to support the ACT’s public health services to continue providing essential health services to the community and to respond to the additional demands of the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes provision for respiratory assessment clinics, enabling an increase in inpatient beds and ICU capacity across the territory, maintenance of COVID-19 testing capacity and the purchase of additional medical equipment and supplies.
Yesterday the Minister for Mental Health, Mr Rattenbury, and I also announced additional funding for mental health services and our non-government partners. With more than $6 million allocated in total, these responses will help to address the additional demand many services are seeing, enable service innovation and the shift to online and telehealth support, and provide funding for organisations whose ability to generate revenue has been affected by the COVID-19 emergency. I take this opportunity to thank the community sector for its strong engagement in our response to COVID-19.
The ACT government is aware that the pandemic may exacerbate vulnerability, and we have taken steps to mitigate these risks. On 26 March 2020, Minister Orr announced that the ACT government would work together with community partners to provide urgent food and essential items through the Canberra relief network to ensure that vulnerable Canberrans can access the food and items they need during the pandemic. This quick piece of work has been widely welcomed within the community sector and has made a real difference.
On 20 April, Minister Berry and Minister Orr announced the details of $3 million in funding to provide support for people facing homelessness or domestic and family violence arising from the COVID-19 pandemic to relieve the pressure of additional need now and throughout winter. These initiatives were funded from the economic survival packages the Chief Minister announced on 20 March and 2 April to protect and support Canberran households and businesses.
The economic impacts of the virus will be felt for years, and this is why a phased economic response is being put in place to help our community through this incredibly difficult immediate period and onwards as we enter the recovery phase.
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