State Health Incident Coordinator Dr Robyn Lawrence has advised that Western Australia has plenty of PPE in warehouses. However AMA (WA) President Dr Andrew Miller believes government guidelines are lacking.
“The guidelines do not allow for proper respiratory protection to prevent airborne spread of COVID, which everyone now accepts is real for people dealing with suspected or likely or confirmed COVID,” Dr Miller said.
“The West Australian government needs to turn around and say that we will provide respiratory level protection for anybody having contact with patients who have COVID or who might have COVID.
“So, for example, if you work in a COVID clinic you should be fit-tested for a proper respiratory mask, be given goggles and other protection including a suit or a gown and gloves to stop you from catching COVID particularly the B117 variant.”
Dr Miller says the government is not addressing airborne spread and not looking after healthcare workers.
“As we demonstrated recently, we can’t test efficiently all the people in WA who came in from New South Wales," he said. "Forget the West Australian population. We can’t even test the visitors.
“How are we going to cope if suddenly we have an outbreak and we have to test the whole of the northern suburbs? We don’t have the capacity to do that at the moment."