Key Findings
- Considerable resources are required to sustain a public health emergency response over several months, even during a less severe pandemic.
- ‘Business as usual’ was generally continued in both the public and clinical healthcare settings.
- Public health unit support for border screening, contact tracing, surveillance reporting and quarantine management was resource intensive.
- The early strain on hospital system capacity is likely to occur in another pandemic while severity is unknown.
- A major limitation to surge capacity in hospital intensive care units was lack of availability of trained intensive care staff with infectious diseases experience.
- General practice had a larger role than had been considered in planning.
- There is a need to develop guidance on strategies that could be employed during a pandemic to enhance the finite health sector workforce capacity and maintain it for long periods of time.
Text box 6: Health sector capacity guidance from AHMPPI 2008
Objective
Objective
- Operational objective 3: Optimise the health system to reduce morbidity and mortality.
- Purpose
- Minimise transmission of the pandemic virus by:
- undertaking initial assessment of suspected cases and isolation of the sick
- ensuring rapid referral of people to ‘flu clinics’
- working with relevant state, territory and local government agencies to facilitate contact tracing and quarantining of exposed individuals
- assisting with antiviral medication and vaccine administration.
- Ensure that health services are optimised by:
- maintaining primary care services for patients
- assisting at ‘flu clinics’
- providing home care (if practical) for suspected cases.
- Health workforce arrangements are a health sector decision
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