PPE supply in Tasmania

Sarah Courtney,Minister for Health

The Tasmanian Government's number one priority is keeping Tasmanians, including our health care workers, safe and secure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I would like to reassure staff that we have an appropriate level of PPE supplies across all regions of the State, so that our frontline workers can safely respond to patients' clinical needs.

Additionally, PPE is a critical focus of the Health Emergency Coordination Centre, which will drive state-wide coordination of a new COVID-19 PPE model.

Further, the Department of Health will be introducing additional PPE instruction, audit and supply management roles within North West hospitals, as a pilot, with learnings to be monitored by our THS Emergency Operations Centre team and shared across our Northern and Southern hospitals.

The Department is also working with existing and new suppliers to ensure we continue to have an adequate supply. We are working closely with the Commonwealth to draw from the national stockpile where needed and have confidence in our level of supply.

We have also placed orders worth an additional $26 million over normal supply levels to prepare for pandemic PPE use.

Our priority is to provide all of our health staff with a safe working environment and to ensure they have the PPE sufficient to fight this pandemic.

An outline of our current stocks as at today is provided below:

* THS stock on hand represents stock at supply warehouses. Stock on wards at hospitals is not included in this report, but is being checked daily.

**Supplier identified and gowns will be ordered asap.