Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / NT Health's Director of Nursing Kylee St George says there will be no adverse impacts on patients after a warehouse fire destroyed $30 million of medical supplies

Transcript

NT Health's Director of Nursing Kylee St George says there will be no adverse impacts on patients after a warehouse fire destroyed $30 million of medical supplies · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: As we have just been discussing, we know that that
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: warehouse fire has caused an enormous amount of damage when
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  Speaker 1: it comes to the supplies for the Department of Health.
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  Speaker 1: Now joining me on the line is Kylie Saint George,
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  Speaker 1: who is the director of Nursing and Operations with the
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  Speaker 1: Division of Emergency Medicine with nt Health.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Kylie.
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  Speaker 3: Good morning, Katie. How are you this morning?
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  Speaker 2: Very well? Thanks so much for your time.
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  Speaker 1: Now, Kylie, what is the latest on the warehouse after
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  Speaker 1: that fire tore through on the weekend.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we know that the obviously the fire went
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  Speaker 3: through on Sunday and in response to that, the RDPH
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  Speaker 3: and Anti Health called Code Brown to enable an all
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  Speaker 3: of system wide response. My understanding is the Anti Fire
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  Speaker 3: and police and emergency services are still investigating the cause
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  Speaker 3: on the scene and to ensure an nt Health perspective,
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  Speaker 3: we have commenced slightwise and region wide stop take and
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  Speaker 3: procurement actions to ensure that stock will be delivered and
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  Speaker 3: care to patients won't be interrupted.
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  Speaker 1: Look, I might ask you, firstly, do we know at
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  Speaker 1: this point in time do you know how that fire
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  Speaker 1: broke out?
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  Speaker 3: No, we don't have any information. As I mentioned, anti
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  Speaker 3: police and foreign emergency services will be investigating for From
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  Speaker 3: my perspective and my role, our focus is really on
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  Speaker 3: making sure that the health service is moving forward and
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  Speaker 3: that there's no interruption.
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  Speaker 1: Look taking that into account, you might not actually have
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  Speaker 1: an answer to my next question, but I'll ask and
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  Speaker 1: feel free to tell us if you don't. I know
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  Speaker 1: that doctor Robert Parker we spoke to just a short
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  Speaker 1: time ago from the AMA, and he had said that
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  Speaker 1: concerns have been raised that there wasn't adequate fire retardant
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  Speaker 1: within that warehouse. Do you know if there was or
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  Speaker 1: if there were sprinklers in place to sort of put
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  Speaker 1: that fire out in the initial stages?
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  Speaker 3: My apology, Katie, in my role and no, I'm not
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  Speaker 3: aware of that's anything in regards to the buildings.
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  Speaker 2: That's all right.
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  Speaker 1: We can ask we will put those questions to somebody else. Kylie,
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  Speaker 1: what I might ask you do you have that's fine?
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  Speaker 1: Do you have any specifics on the types of items
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  Speaker 1: and things like that that were destroyed?
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  Speaker 3: So items at the ware house were It was a
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  Speaker 3: large facility with a large amount of our supplies there
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  Speaker 3: and it included everything from stationery to cleaning products, specimen jars, bandages,
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  Speaker 3: sterile products. It was a wide range of consumables and
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  Speaker 3: product equipment that was stored.
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  Speaker 1: There, and I know that there was or it's been
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  Speaker 1: estimated that it was thirty million dollars worth of supplies lost.
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  Speaker 2: Is that still accurate?
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  Speaker 3: I am not aware of what the costs. I know
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  Speaker 3: that the finance team is obviously involved and stepping through
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  Speaker 3: full response is very much being focused on making sure
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  Speaker 3: that we replace the equipment, that there's no interruption to service,
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  Speaker 3: and the cost and the dollars I sure will be
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  Speaker 3: worked out in time.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely, And how are you now sort of going through
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  Speaker 1: the process of being able to source some of those
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  Speaker 1: essential items so that the hospitals don't run out.
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  Speaker 3: Look, I have to say it's been an absolute pleasure
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  Speaker 3: working with our stores and procurement and equipment teams. We've
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  Speaker 3: obviously got many of the systems in place. Declaring the
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  Speaker 3: cloth brown really enables everyone to be agile and just
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  Speaker 3: get the job done. And so we're just slowly methodically
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  Speaker 3: going through everything and making sure that there's sharing across
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  Speaker 3: the system because obviously we've got a number of warehouses
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  Speaker 3: in Darwin and across the Northern Territory. It is ant
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  Speaker 3: wide response. So for example, we can move a critical
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  Speaker 3: equipment that we need to and then of course we've
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  Speaker 3: got our local suppliers who were unaffected by the fire,
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  Speaker 3: and so we're leaning into to have those stocks move
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  Speaker 3: urgently into the health service in the system.
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  Speaker 1: And are you having to source anything from interstate or
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  Speaker 1: anywhere at this point in.
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  Speaker 3: Time, Look that the specialist areas are going through those
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  Speaker 3: each of the itemized quip points at the moment, and
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  Speaker 3: we'll have a better idea of what we need to
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  Speaker 3: bring in from into state probably later on today, but
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  Speaker 3: certainly for now, we've got an assurance that we don't.
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  Speaker 3: We have everything available to us and there will be
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  Speaker 3: no interruption to service or certainly to patient care at all. Okay,
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  Speaker 3: so seeable few days.
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  Speaker 2: That's good to hear.
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  Speaker 1: So at this point in time, no adverse impacts on patients, No.
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  Speaker 3: No, absolutely not. We've got contingency built within the system anyway,
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  Speaker 3: and we are just making sure that that will continue
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  Speaker 3: over the next days and weeks.
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  Speaker 1: And I guess when it comes to surgeries and things
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  Speaker 1: like that, they're probably well, I guess any area of
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  Speaker 1: the hospital you do need this type of equipment, but
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  Speaker 1: particularly with surgeries and stuff. So is there any impact
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  Speaker 1: in that space at this point in time. No.
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  Speaker 3: Like I mentioned, we will be going through making sure
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  Speaker 3: a lot of particularly specialist equipment comes straight into the hospital.
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  Speaker 3: And as I mentioned, there are a number of houses
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  Speaker 3: and there's a number of resources that we can pull
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  Speaker 3: on and share. So having that anti wide oversight of
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  Speaker 3: all the equipment, a lot of it just needs to
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  Speaker 3: be ensured that it's in the right place at the
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  Speaker 3: right time, and that's what our teams are working on now.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Kylie, any idea when the code brown might
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  Speaker 1: be lifted sort of, you know, once you've got a
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  Speaker 1: better idea on all of that stuff. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So there's an incident management meeting headed up by the
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  Speaker 3: Anti Health Incident Controller, our chief procurement office. That team's
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  Speaker 3: meeting daily and that will be on the agenda to
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  Speaker 3: review as to when it steps down, and it will
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  Speaker 3: be stepped down when we are sure that we have
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  Speaker 3: all the right systems processes in place, but also that
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  Speaker 3: we've identified and mitigated any risk.
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  Speaker 1: Sounds like it's going to be a busy, busy time
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  Speaker 1: for you on top of your normal job.
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  Speaker 2: What are the next steps for you guys.
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  Speaker 3: So the next step far so very much around checking
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  Speaker 3: the list twice and ensuring that every area has got
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  Speaker 3: all the requirements that they need and that we've got
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  Speaker 3: that really certain secure supply chain. We obviously need to
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  Speaker 3: create alternate storage areas which our teams are on see now,
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  Speaker 3: and there's been various areas identified. We anticipate that we'll
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  Speaker 3: actually start having stopped delivered to the hospital at the
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  Speaker 3: Royal Darwin Hospital today. So it's really proved to the
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  Speaker 3: agility of the team and that we're just working on
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  Speaker 3: the systems and processes that really do exist with a
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  Speaker 3: team that is just quite remarkable.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, have you ever had to deal with anything sort
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  Speaker 1: of this. I know it's such a different kind of
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  Speaker 1: scenario probably to what you're dealing with in your usual
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  Speaker 1: day job, Kylie, with a you know, with a warehouse
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  Speaker 1: fire and the impacts on those supplies.
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  Speaker 3: To be honest, Katie, COVID, the whole COVID pandemic did
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  Speaker 3: raise all sorts of challenges in ways that would be
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  Speaker 3: outside our normal roles, and certainly equipment is something that's
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  Speaker 3: throughout the entire pandemic. We had to have agile you know,
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  Speaker 3: thinking around and wider knowledge of products that were out there.
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  Speaker 3: So in some ways the pandemic has absolutely prepared us
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  Speaker 3: for this.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh no doubt.
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  Speaker 1: I mean our nurses, our healthcare professionals, you know, all
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  Speaker 1: of those stuff. You guys are so agile and you're
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  Speaker 1: able to, you know, to remain unflappable even when even
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  Speaker 1: when something massive is going on.
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  Speaker 2: So well done to you all. I know it would
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  Speaker 2: be a busy time.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you very much, And yes it is. It's our doctors,
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  Speaker 3: our nurses out Allied Health, but also our support teams
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  Speaker 3: around us. The ability to just solve problems is quite
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  Speaker 3: it's a very very lovely team to work within.
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  Speaker 1: Well good on you guys, and we'll keep in contact
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  Speaker 1: and just find out how things are progressing. But we
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  Speaker 1: really appreciate you having a chat with us this morning.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Katie, Thank you you too,