Things are going from bad to worse with Victoria’s sudden surge in COVID-19, and still, Premier Daniel Andrews is resolutely refusing to acknowledge any responsibility.
First, he blamed “multicultural communities”, then it was workers, now it’s aged-care workers and providers, even the federal government.
Never mind the damning evidence that points straight at his own government.
Extra nurses, doctors and paramedics are being rushed into Melbourne aged-care facilities at the centre of a coronavirus outbreak killing elderly patients, as the relationship between the Morrison and Andrews governments publicly fractures and the Victorian Premier declares nursing homes unsafe.
Daniel Andrews said he would not send his mother into federal homes, prompting Scott Morrison’s Health Minister, Greg Hunt, to retaliate by declaring the deadly outbreak was a result of the state government’s bungled hotel quarantine regime.
Victoria’s outbreak is ripping through nursing homes. There have been nearly 40 deaths, and closing on 800 infections, across 80 homes. Yet, in an effort reminiscent of New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s decision to force nursing homes to accept thousands of COVID patients, Andrews refused for a week to free up space in the hospital system and remove infected residents from aged care homes.
The Australian can reveal that the Morrison government had been trying to persuade Victoria to abandon all non-urgent elective surgery for more than a week before Mr Andrews announced the decision to do so on Tuesday[…]
Announcing the move, Mr Andrews blamed the federally regulated aged-care providers, saying it was clear some were struggling to maintain staffing levels and basic standards of care[…]Mr Hunt hit back, lashing Victorian hospitals for refusing to admit aged-care residents, and saying he couldn’t imagine his father, who spent the final months of his life in aged care, receiving better care than he did.
Then there’s still the fact that this outbreak is almost entirely the fault of the Andrews government.
Mr Hunt also made several pointed references to the origins of Victoria’s second wave of -coronavirus infections. A high proportion if not all of the state’s current cases are genomically linked to breaches in the Andrews government’s hotel quarantine system.
“Let us go back to the source of this: a massive breach of hotel quarantine,” Mr Hunt said[…]
The Australian understands Mr Andrews was advised by federal Health Department secretary Brendan Murphy last week to free up nurses and hospital space to treat nursing home residents, but initially failed to act, prompting an intervention from Mr Morrison with phone calls between the Premier and Prime Minister on Monday night and Tuesday morning.
What is happening in Victoria now with COVID-19 is a re-run of the disastrous bushfires last summer. Years of negligence by the Victorian government resulted, in the case of bushfires, in extraordinary build-up of fuel loads; in the case of COVID, Victoria’s ICU capacity is the second-lowest per population of any Australian state. As happened in the bushfires, Victoria has dithered in accepting help from the federal government – at the same time as it tries to shift blame on to Canberra.
And, once again, Canberra is saving Victoria’s arse.
Mr Hunt said an Australian Medical Assistance Team, including doctors, nurses, paramedics and allied health experts, would be swung into action in Victorian nursing homes in coming days.
Nurses will be redeployed from interstate, the Australian Defence Force and Victorian private hospitals, in addition to the AUSMAT team, which Mr Hunt described as the “SAS of the medical world”.
Mr Hunt said the government was also working to source additional nursing capacity from interstate, and had committed a further five million face masks and 500,000 reusable face shields from the national stockpile to the containment effort.
But will Andrews accept a skerrick of responsibility for his monumental failure? Don’t hold your breath.
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