Canberra lockdown: Shout out for nurses as hundreds of medical staff enter quarantine

Elective surgery could be scaled back to allow Canberra's health staff to meet "monumental" testing demand in the fight against COVID-19, as authorities look to students and people retired from the medical profession to join the fight.

More than 500 Canberra Health Services staff and more than 150 workers at Calvary Public Hospital had been identified as at risk of COVID-19 as of Wednesday afternoon.

ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said elective surgery and outpatient activities may be scaled back to free staff up to take on the front-line response.

Tuesday saw another testing record broken, with 8000 swabs taken.

"We've been doing everything we can to pull in staff, but we have already seen an impact on services," Ms Stephen-Smith said, pointing to the closure of the Dickson walk-in centre last week to allow staff to assist with tests.

"We are continuing to have a look at what non-urgent elective activity, both outpatients and potentially surgery, we may have to scale back in order to do this front-line health response at this incredible scale," the Health Minister said.

Nursing students and retired nurses will be called on to help meet demand for services now that hundreds of health practitioners have been made to quarantine or self isolate.

Ms Stephen-Smith and Chief Minister Andrew Barr signed an amendment to regulations on Tuesday to allow nursing students to contribute to the pandemic response.

Now in the hands of Chief Health Officer Kerryn Coleman, the change will provide nursing students an avenue to participate in Covid testing and the vaccine rollout.

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Ms Stephen-Smith said the ACT would initially engage nursing students in the workforce and then other medical students would be called on.

She said there were employment and industrial issues to finalise, but students could come on board in the "not too distant future".

The discussion about including students in the workforce, as has been done across other states, has been ongoing for several months.

Retired nurses have also been called on to contribute to the ACT Covid response as staff struggle to meet demand for the record numbers of tests carried out each day since the outbreak occurred.

Ms Stephen-Smith said recently retired nurse or nurses taking a career break who had the capacity to return could make a real difference in the outbreak.

"Obviously their fellow nurses are under a lot of stress," she said.

"Strain at the moment working during the testing and vaccination program and then business as usual in the hospitals."

ACT Health staff were redeployed from office jobs last week to assist on the front line when testing demand began to surge.

Canberra student nurses reported being ready and willing to assist, with ACT Health previously advising it was working with stakeholders to put them to work.

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