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• JOINT MEDIA RELEASE FROM BRENDAN MURPHY AND NICK COATSWORTH AUTHORISED BY GREG HUNT, THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH

  Dear Members / Trainees

  Please see message below and a link to the joint media statement from Brendan Murphy & Nick Coatsworth, authorised by Greg Hunt, on the easing of certain elective surgery restrictions. 

  We will be in touch with further detail as this becomes available.

  Kind regards,

  Federal Secretariat 

  ---------------------------------------------------------------

  Click here for the full media release in PDF

  Minister Hunt’s office issued the media release regarding the easing of elective surgery restrictions.

  The Prime Minister’s office has also issued a media statement, Update on Coronavirus Measures, that includes the following section about elective surgery.

  Elective surgery

  National Cabinet received up-to-date data on the stock of personnel protective equipment (PPE) in the National Medical Stockpile, and PPE held by state and territory health systems. PPE stocks and other equipment such as ventilators are now largely sufficient to meet expected demand for Australia’s COVID19 response through to December 2020, with current social distancing and travel restriction measures in place. 

  National Cabinet noted that the National Medical Stockpile does not replace state, territory or private processes to source and deliver PPE to meet their needs. To date, the National Medical Stockpile has dispatched over 22 million masks primarily to state and territories, GP’s, Community Pharmacy, ACHHOS and aged care, with a further 11.5 million being dispatched this week.

  Unnecessarily delaying elective surgeries can worsen health outcomes, increase anxiety and reduce social and economic productivity. 

  As result of Australia’s success in flattening the curve, our low rates of COVID related hospitalisation and new data on stocks of PPE, National Cabinet agreed that from 27 April 2020, category 2 and equivalent procedures can recommence across the public and private hospital sectors. 

  As result of Australia’s success in flattening the curve, our low rates of COVID related hospitalisation and new data on stocks of PPE, National Cabinet agreed that from 27 April 2020, category 2 and some important category 3 procedures can recommence across the public and private hospital sectors. 

  National Cabinet further agreed that the following procedures can recommence from 27 April 2020:

  ·         IVF

  ·         Screening programs (cancer and other diseases)

  ·         Post cancer reconstruction procedures (such as breast reconstruction)

  ·         Procedures for children under 18 years of age.

  ·         Joint replacements (incl knees, hips, shoulders)

  ·         Cataracts and eye procedures

  ·         Endoscopy and colonoscopy procedures

  PPE stocks for these elective surgeries and procedures will not be taken from the National Medical Stockpile.

  It is estimated that a gradual restart of elective surgeries will see 1 in 4 closed elective surgery operating lists reopen, with flexibility for states to determine the appropriate levels of elective surgery within this general framework.

  Reintroduction of elective surgery in a staged manner balances the ongoing need for the capacity to treat COVID-19 patients, while allowing our hospitals to treat elective surgery patients.

  These arrangements will be reviewed by 11 May 2020, to determine if other elective surgeries and procedures can recommence and volumes increased.

  National Cabinet further agreed to the Australian Dental Association recommendation that dentists move to level 2 restrictions (such as fitting dentures, braces, non-high speed drill fillings and basic fillings), allowing a broader range of dental interventions to occur where the risk of transmission can be managed and PPE stocks procured by the private sector.

  National Cabinet again thanked Australia’s health care professionals for their work to support our COVID-19 response.

  Kind regards,

  Ben Houston

  Acting Director – Health Communication

   

  Communication and Change Branch | People, Communication and Parliamentary Division

  Australian Government Department of Health

  T: 02.6289.5745 | E: benjamin.houston@health.gov.au

  PO Box 9848, Canberra ACT 2601

  Level 3 Sirius Building North, Furze St. Woden ACT

   

  The Department of Health acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, and their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to them and their cultures, and to elders both past and present. 

• INALA HEALTH CENTRE: BIG STEP IN THE CLOSING THE GAP

  It should shame us that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have such poor health outcomes. They die 10 years younger and have much higher death rates than non-indigenous people across all age groups and for all major causes of death.

   

  Heart disease, advanced cancer, diabetes and subsequent kidney failure, untreated blindness and childhood deafness are far too common. Cancer is diagnosed later and incomplete treatment is almost the norm. The rate of First Nations’ discharge against medical advice, an indicator of health systems’ successfully engaging patients, is eight times higher than for non-indigenous Australians. Despite employing Aboriginal liaison officers, hospitals are failing First Nations people.

  Health messages are being ignored: 39 per cent of indigenous people smoke daily compared with 14 per cent of the Australian population. Consequently, heart disease is eight times higher in middle-aged indigenous Australians. The commonest cancers in First Nations people are lung and head and neck (mouth and throat), both smoking-related. Diabetes is three times more prevalent and chronic renal failure, an indicator of poor diabetes management, is five times higher. 

   Last year’s Australian Medical Association report card on Closing the Gap highlights that health systems are designed for “equity of outcome”. But something is wrong when First Nations people are 10 times less likely to be added to a kidney transplant waiting list and 30 per cent less likely to be offered cataract surgery. 

  Health expenditure on those with greater needs should be higher. Combined public and private hospital costs of First Nations people with cancer and musculoskeletal disease (hip and knee replacements and so on) are lower than for non-indigenous Australians. The cost of mental and behavioural disorders, diabetes and injuries are higher. 

   

  The lower cost of orthopaedic and musculoskeletal services but higher rates of obesity and injuries reflect the lack of access to public health services. The higher rates of cancer but lower spend on cancer services for First Nations people is disgraceful. 

   

  We may pride ourselves on our multiculturalism, but “otherness” and pigeonholing are everywhere. 

   

  Assumptions by staff that the indigenous patient will not turn up for an operation mean they often are not placed on theatre lists. The reasoning that remote indigenous people will not arrive when a matched kidney donor becomes available at necessarily short notice may explain the one-tenth rate of indigenous people offered a place on transplant lists. 

   

  Indigenous people are slower to access medical services to investigate health complaints. The abdominal pain or rectal bleeding that signifies a possible bowel cancer is just too hard to investigate when you have to leave a safe environment and dependent children to travel many hours by car and then train or plane to a potentially unsafe hostel to be seen by white health professionals who don’t understand your thinking and culture.  

   

  Then the assumption is often made that the appointments for investigations that may have long waiting lists and require other long journeys won’t be kept. 

   

  Canada and the US have similar indigenous health issues, although not as bad. Each is building First Nations hospital networks run by indigenous organisations for indigenous patients. The hospital is “culturally safe” in design and staffing. Cancer investigations are expedited, as are ear and eye surgeries that are relatively cheap and simple. 

   

  Diabetes and chronic renal failure with dialysis are treated in a sensitive environment that encourages engagement and participation. Indigenous hospitals can be training centres for indigenous employment from nursing to accounting and building maintenance. They can be places where non-indigenous health professionals are taught cultural sensitivity and about the health and emotional needs of our 800,000 First Australians. 

   

  St Vincent’s Healthcare Australia has allocated funding from its inclusive health program to test the viability and business case of a First Nations hospital and health network proposed for Inala in Brisbane. Its steering committee is led by Noel Hayman, Queensland’s first Aboriginal doctor and specialist public health physician. He is director of the Inala Indigenous Health Service, which is associated with the University of Queensland. He is being advised by Kelvin Kong, Australia’s first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander surgeon, and other respected and senior specialists.

   

  There are 85,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders living in the neighbourhood of the Inala centre. That is the population of Bundaberg, which has a 240-bed public hospital with five operating theatres and an endoscopy suite, along with three private hospitals with 10 operating rooms and four theatres for endoscopies.

   

  It is envisaged the Inala health centre hospital will be a 23-hour hospital for indigenous patients to enable them to comfortably enter the hospital system. It will have the cancer surgeons and endoscopists to screen for the cancers that present in great numbers and are too advanced to cure. 

   

  It will be a waiting list reduction hospital for non-indigenous people. It would be a culturally sensitive place with good, clean hostel accommodation next door. This Aboriginal hospital will screen for cancer of the lungs, bowel, throat and breast. Patients then can be referred directly to the major tertiary hospitals including Princess Alexandra, Logan and QEII, and the patients will be supported in that journey. The Inala First Nations hospital also can help patients in other areas where results are still poor — dental care, dialysis and palliative services.

   

  If a sustainable model of care for indigenous Australians can be built in Inala, other indigenous hospitals could be built elsewhere. We have to close the gap. Spare capacity in these indigenous hospitals could be filled with the overflowing non-indigenous waiting list patients. Everyone’s a winner.

   

  Planning for Inala makes the case that Australia can catch up with Canada and the US in addressing poor indigenous health outcomes with a well-funded indigenous hospital and health network. Now the community needs to face the challenge of funding the building and ensuring sustainable ongoing resourcing. We need equality of outcome in First Nations health to start to close the gap in education and economic outcomes. Today’s healthcare model fails them.

   

  Christopher Perry is an associate professor at the University of Queensland. This essay was published in The Australian 3 July 2019

• AHPCC STATEMENT ON RESTORATION OF ELECTIVE SURGERY

  Please click here to access the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) statement on restoration of elective surgery.

  https://www.health.gov.au/news/australian-health-protection-principal-committee-ahppc-statement-on-restoration-of-elective-surgery

• HEARING HEALTH ROADMAP

  Australia’s first Hearing Health Roadmap has been created to improve the lives of the millions of Australians affected by hearing loss. 

  The Roadmap was reviewed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Health Council on Friday 8th of March, to spearhead a coordinated effort to improve hearing health.

  The Roadmap can be accessed here :

  https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/CDFD1B86FA5F437CCA2583B7000465DB/$File/Roadmap%20for%20Hearing%20Health.pdf

• NSW Australian of the Year - Top four Finalist

  ASOHNS would like to congratulate Professor Kelvin Kong on being nominated as one of the top four finalists in the NSW Australian of the Year. 

  He was recognised for his work as a Surgeon and advocate for Aboriginal ear health

  This year Professor Kong was in the company of Professor Megan Davis - Aboriginal constitutional and human rights lawyer (Sydney), Craig Foster AM - Human rights and anti-racism activist, former Socceroo (Sydney), Dr Barry Kirby AO - Founder, The Hands of Rescue, obstetrics and gynaecology specialist (Carool)

  For information on his nomination - click here

• ASOHNS congratulates the winner of the Australian and New Zealand Chapter of the American College of Surgeons 2026 Surgical Forum

  ASOHNS congratulates the winner of the Australian and New Zealand Chapter of the American College of Surgeons 2026 Surgical Forum, held during the 94th RACS Annual Scientific Congress in Perth.