A Victorian pandemic oversight committee has checked the pulse of hospitals after the Omicron COVID-19 variant wrought havoc on the sector to start the year.
In its second sitting since being established under Victoria's controversial pandemic laws, the Pandemic Declaration Accountability and Oversight Committee ran the ruler over the hospital system and gauged the impact of ongoing restrictions.
Victoria suspended all less-urgent category two and three surgery in early January as the Omicron variant spread through the community, creating widespread pressure on the health system.
It has led to elective surgery waiting lists rising to 3600 for Alfred Health and 3000 for Northern Health.
"Of those, 1020 have waited longer than their clinically recommended time," Alfred Health Chief Executive Andrew Way told the hearing on Thursday.
Professor Way said the health service typically had about 2000 people on its waiting list at any one time.
Elective surgery numbers at Melbourne's Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre haven't blown out to anywhere near the same level.
"For category two, we've had an increase of seven patients and in category three an increase of 35," Chief Executive Shelley Dolan said.
Category two procedures will resume in Melbourne public hospitals from Monday, and all elective surgery could be able to ramp up to 100 per cent capacity a week later, at the health minister's discretion.
At the peak of the Omicron wave, 1700 Alfred Health workers were furloughed as either confirmed COVID-19 cases or close contacts.
It represented almost 20 per cent of the service's total workforce, and staff were asked to return from or delay leave to ease the burden as part of the system-wide "code brown" declaration.
"We did maintain all of the major services," Prof Way said.
"But we did breach, and notify that we were breaching, safe care patient ratios, although that's now back on track."
Despite staff shortages, Alfred Health, Peter MacCallum and the Royal Children's Hospital did not draw on nurses from the private sector.
However, the Alfred moved some of its COVID-19 intensive care patients to a local private hospital once no longer infectious.
When the prospect was raised of Victoria reviving a standalone infectious diseases hospital to aid its response to future pandemics, Prof Way voiced his "significant concerns".
"My general view is that standalone hospitals are difficult because of the multidisciplinary nature of medicine," he said.
"Let's say it's an infectious disease hospital away from a main campus like the Alfred, where would it get all of those other specialities? With today's engineering abilities, it should not need to be separate."
The opposition has pledged to create a $400 million infectious diseases response centre with 100 beds and 300 specialist nurses if it wins government at the November state election, while the Andrews Labor government is building a $650 million infectious diseases institute.
Victoria's only infectious diseases hospital at Fairfield in Melbourne's north was closed in 1996 by the Kennett government.
