South West Healthcare arms hospital against Delta COVID-19 variant

Chief executive Craig Fraser said the hospital had made several changes as it did everything possible to protect patients and staff.

"We have transitioned the emergency department to a COVID model, which increases the protection of staff by changing the flow of people as they come in," he said.

Doctors are also now required to wear goggles and N95 masks at all times, on top of their standard PPE and change the equipment between seeing each patient. Mr Fraser said PPE was a challenging but vital bulwark against the virus.

"The reality is our staff have been wearing PPE for 18 months now and it's draining and it's really tiring, but they are doing an amazing job to get up and about every single day," he said.

WARRNAMBOOL COVID NEWS:

The ventilation systems at Warrnambool Base Hospital have been regularly audited, with particular attention to air flows, which are critical to combating an airborne virus like SARS-CoV-2.

The hospital has also started testing all patients going into theatre for surgery to ensure surgical areas remain virus free, and testing between 50 to 150 patients across the hospital per day.

Mr Fraser described the changes as an ongoing response to the rapidly "significant change in the COVID status" across regional Victoria.

"We can see that this is really difficult to stop the spread of," he said.

"We're not only receiving new guidelines but we're also looking at better ways to do things so we're in a constant cycle of trying to improve what we're doing.

"And obviously things change in the external environment, so if delta comes into our region we'll reinforce and do even more at that point."

Mr Fraser said the community also had a role to play in keeping staff and patients at the hospital safe, saying that if people have mild symptoms they should immediately get tested.

"We prefer that they don't come into the hospital, particularly to get seen, if they have mild symptoms, we would rather that they get tested and isolate at home until they get that test. Obviously if you're unwell, our services are always here, particularly our emergency department.

"But we request that anyone who does want to attend who has symptoms similar to those of COVID, that they ring in advance. So they ring the hospital, and (staff) will work with them about how they can enter the service safely."

He stressed the importance of not getting complacent about the virus, saying that this may have driven some of the outbreaks elsewhere in the state.

"People have to remember we're in a statewide lockdown and many of the people that are testing positive probably weren't aware early on that they had symptoms.

"In all likelihood you won't have COVID but let's treat it like you have until proven otherwise," he said.

The more dangerous and virulent Delta COVID-19 variant means those who are unvaccinated are 2.7 times more likely to be hospitalised with serious illness, Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said on Monday.

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