Greta has been scheduled for her surgery for the 17th of February! Fingers crossed for fourth time lucky. Having been cancelled three times already we are nervous whether we will finally get there this time but again, the hospital have been great advocates.

An update in the Herald Sun today hopefully means many more babies will soon have dates too! We only hope the return of elective surgeries will last.

Roadmap for return of elective surgeries revealed

Health Minister Martin Foley has laid out the first steps for a return to elective surgeries.
He will consider a staged process of resuming surgeries depending on case numbers and hospitalisation figures

From Monday, private hospitals and day procedure centres will be able to resume day surgery at up to 50 per cent of their regular capacity.

Mr Foley will further consider when to resume more elective surgeries, flagging this could begin as 50 per cent of health service capacity in Melbourne and 75 per cent in regional Victoria.
When the average number of covid hospitalisations drops below 600, the health Minister will weight up resuming some non-urgent elective surgeries in public hospitals.
This will depend on staffing levels at the time.
Victoria will boost ambulance and health services with a $1.4 billion funding package to cover additional costs and deliver more frontline workers.
The rollout of an extra 120 paramedics will be fast-tracked in a bid to ease the immense pressure which has led to multiple Code Red declarations.

Ambulance Victoria recorded its busiest quarter on record in the three months to December 2021.
There were 91,397 Code 1 cases, a 16.2 per cent rise on the same period in 2020.
Emergency departments treated 460,963 people over the same.time, an increase of nearly 13,000 year on year.
The number of Victorians waiting for elective surgery sits at 81,000 people.
Public hospitals will receive a share of $938 million to cover extra Covid costs, provide surge payments and support staff.
The states PPE stockpile will receive an extra 40 million N95 masks, 30 million surgical masks, 10 million gowns and 10 million face shields.
Another $196 million will go towards helping people infected with Covid recover at home.
A statewide “virtual triage” system will be rolled out to avoid unnecessary trips to hospital after a successful trial at Northern Hospital.
During the pilot, 87 per cent of people assessed online did not need to go to hospital.
Another $8 million will fund eight more GP respiratory clinics and five new urgent care centres.
Victoria recorded 11,240 new cases and 36 Covid deaths overnight.
707 people are currently under hospital care, including 79 in intensive care, 29 of whom are on ventilators.