People who have planned surgery booked at Mackay Base and Proserpine hospitals on Monday or Tuesday are advised their procedure has been cancelled.
This includes elective caesarean sections. Anyone with urgent concerns is welcome to phone their usual hospital contact.
Patients having renal dialysis, oncology treatment and medical infusions at Mackay Base Hospital are being contacted directly by nursing staff to discuss their care.
Appointments are also cancelled in:
- Specialist Outpatients Department at Mackay Base including allied health, antenatal, women’s and children’s clinics.
- Cannonvale Community Health Centre until further notice as this service is located in a flood zone.
- Mackay Community Mental Health, BreastScreen, Alcohol and Other Drugs and Carlyle Community Health Centre.
This decision has been made to avoid people travelling in hazardous weather conditions – wind, rain and flooding – we can expect with Cyclone Debbie.
It is also important we free up capacity in our hospitals to cope with an increase in emergency presentations.
The health service will make a decision about Wednesday surgeries and clinic appointments once the impact of Cyclone Debbie is known on Tuesday.
We will attempt to cancel everyone whose appointment is cancelled so please check your phone messages.
However we may not reach everyone so if you have an appointment or planned surgery for Monday or Tuesday please assume it is cancelled unless you hear otherwise.
There are no plans to evacuate any of our facilities which are all well-prepared for a cyclone. Planning has involved securing additional supplies of medication, food, water and linen.
Generators are in place and additional fuel has been delivered in the event the hospitals lose power.
Apart from the above changes all of our hospitals will continue to operate as normal however you are asked to only attend in an emergency. If you need non urgent health advice please call 13HEALTH to speak to a Registered Nurse.
Please be assured Mackay HHS is working closely to coordinate care across our region. We are in regular contact with other hospitals, residential aged care homes, police, ambulance, local government and other agencies.
We have also spoken to our patients who are living with chronic conditions at home and may depend on home oxygen for example, and ensure they have additional supplies.
Staff
Please attend as usual tomorrow in all facilities unless directed otherwise by your manager or on-call staff. If you work in an area where services have been cancelled you will be redeployed to work in another area.
Please speak to your line manager if you anticipate difficulty in attending to work due to weather.
Strong winds are forecast and it is possible staff will be unable to travel home safely so please bring bedding, clothing, food and other personal items.
There will be some rooms available in staff accommodation at various facilities and in the Staff Retreat at Mackay Base Hospital. Rural staff should check accommodation options with their line manager.
There is some capacity for family of staff to be accommodated at the hospitals if essential. Pets are unable to be accommodated.
