AGED care facilities are proceeding with caution as the state grapples with the COVID-19 Omicron variant and now Code Brown for hospitals.
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The Code Brown emergency was announced on Tuesday, January 18.
A code brown means health services may implement changes to tackle the COVID-19 health crisis in their hospitals, such as configuring services to free up more staff, including the delivery of outpatient services outside the hospital, and the rapid offload of ambulance patients at emergency departments to get paramedics back on the road as soon as possible. Hospitals may also choose to redeploy staff to work in areas of highest clinical priority.
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Aged care facilities remain unchanged at this stage.
Visitors were banned for most of 2020 to 2021 to ensure the health of older and more vulnerable Victorians.
The Australian Government continues to highlight the increased risk to both aged care residents and staff.
The past two years saw numerous breakouts of the virus in aged care facilities.
Grampians Health Service incident coordinator Matthew Hadfield said no decisions have been made about visitor restrictions for aged care.
"But visitor restrictions are one of the things we will be considering," he said.
Mr Hadfield said vaccinations are paramount for protecting the older population.
"As soon as possible everyone needs to be vaccinated and everyone needs their booster," he said.
Visitor restrictions will be announced if they are required.
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