The former speech pathologist is doing his internship program through the Australasian College of Health Service Management (ACHSM) and his placement with us has been as a project officer.
Based in our administration and quality teams, we had plenty of projects for Kelvin to get his teeth into – then along came COVID-19. That’s when he took up the additional challenge to oversee the management of the 7am-6pm screening processes at the entrances to our Warrnambool campus facilities.
This has been a very big role. It includes being up-to-date with the Victorian government’s frequent changes to the screening criteria of patients and visitors entering our health service, helping develop patient and visitor information and signage at entrances, developing the online template for our data collection, and orchestrating the social-distancing traffic flow of visitors and patients entering our Warrnambool Base Hospital. It’s also involved keeping relevant staff fully briefed on all of the above. He’s done a tremendous job, we’ve loved having him here, and we can’t wait to see where his career takes him next.
Now that we’re allowed to perform more of our usual levels of elective surgery (over the past couple of months it’d been restricted as a COVID precaution, at the request of the government), numbers are increasing at the front doors of our hospitals. Over the past week, an average 450 people have been screened daily at the entrance to our Warrnambool Base Hospital, alone. This screening includes data gathering (to be able to track anyone should we need to) and temperature checking for Coronavirus signs.
Kelvin’s pictured here with theatre nurse Tanya Noonan and linen services worker William Bell who have today covered the 8am-12noon shift. This pair, and the rest of our screening team, have put their hands up to be redeployed during the pandemic to help do this important work. These hidden heroes are doing a terrific job in helping keep our patients, residents, consumers, clients and staff further protected. It’s frontline. And it’s impressive.