A major staff shortage is preventing the main Aboriginal healthcare service in the Mallee from ramping up COVID vaccinations for First Nations children before school resumes next week.
The head of Mallee District Aboriginal Services (MDAS), Jacki Turfrey, said her service would usually have employed about 20 agency nurses and three doctors at any given time last year.
But since a Code Brown (national emergency alert) was declared last week for many Victorian hospitals struggling with crippling Omicron caseloads, almost no agency nurses had been available, she said.
Ms Turfrey said her organisation would have liked to have been able to deliver as many COVID vaccinations for Aboriginal children in the region as possible this week.
But instead it has had to cut its vaccination services back due to a lack of staff.
Under pressure
Ms Turfrey said the Omicron wave had created a series of problems for all health services, including her own.
She said permanent staff were experiencing severe burnout just as the availability of agency and locum medical staff was rapidly shrinking.
"Because of the high burnout from last year, we've noticed that more staff than we thought might be taking leave are taking leave just because of the pressure," Ms Turfrey said.
"[Meanwhile] we're desperately trying to source locums and agency nursing staff.
"Because everybody's under pressure from this Omicron outbreak, there's just not very many staff to go around."
Earlier vaccination success
Ms Turfrey said Mallee District Aboriginal Services had a lot of success with its outreach vaccination program late last year.
"For the month of October, we managed to significantly increase our vaccinations," she said.
"We managed to get up to 80 per cent [of] Aboriginal community members living across the region being vaccinated, which was amazing, because we were travelling at around 50 per cent before.
But she says the challenge now is to ensure that people get their booster shots, and to provide younger children with their first COVID vaccinations.
"I suspect it will be a longer-term issue," Ms Turfrey said.
"it doesn't mean I won't be able to get some staff, and I'm certainly working on it.
