Health Minister and Deputy Premier Steven Miles has announced the state will develop a “strategic medical stockpile” of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) following revelations that public hospitals ran short during the pandemic – even as authorities said there were no issues with supply.
“There were many products which were running in short supply and in fact there are times, even now, that we continue to run short on products,” he said.
“Supplies that, without which, we cannot deliver healthcare or we put our health staff at risk.”
Queensland’s Department of Health said it never got to a point where doctors or nurses in hospitals had to reuse PPE but admitted that they had worn some equipment for longer periods of time than normal.
The Minister now says the state’s stockpile has doubled.
“We now have in our stockpile, 70 per cent more gloves than before COVID, 2½ times the amount of eye-wear, 150 per cent more gowns and twice as many masks,” he said.
However, he says if the pandemic had worsened, the Government’s modeling showed Queensland would have needed 40,00 masks a day up from the usual 7,000 a day and 85,000 aprons a day, compared to 30,000 a day.
They will also build their clinical reserves for the next pandemic.
“Another pandemic will come and I am determined to ensure that our health staff are never, ever again faced with having to make those kinds of choices about delivering health care,” Mr Miles said.
The question is: will these supplies also be available to aged care operators?
Queensland has had 1,066 cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began, but only one new confirmed case of coronavirus in the past eight days in a returned traveller in hotel quarantine.
