Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews has publicly apologised to the family of a woman who say their first contact with the state’s health department came a week after she had died from coronavirus.
“There’s no question it didn’t work as it should have,” the Premier said of the communication breakdown.
“That’s why I want to apologise to the family, and I want to make it clear to them that we send our deepest sympathies to them.
“If anything that any of our officials have done have made this terribly painful time harder for them, I want to personally apologise.”
He said officials would be “reaching out” to the family this afternoon “if that’s not already happened”.
The Premier said he had not received a full briefing on the specifics of the case but said he would investigate further.
“And if I can provide you with a further update tomorrow or Sunday, then of course I will.”
Meanwhile Safe Care Victoria is set to release a report showing the level of COVID-19 infection in healthcare workers.
Victoria’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Brett Sutton said while a number of healthcare workers were being infected by COVID-19 patients, the virus was also being transmitted between colleagues in the sector.
“We need to actually address all of those transmission chains and all of the potential gaps and learnings that will come out of that report, because it’s not simply about addressing PPE, it’s not simply about addressing patient or staff flow – it is about all of those systems issues that I talked about,” he said.
