Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Curtin for her work prior to coming to this place and in particular for her focus on the hospitals in her electorate, hospitals such as Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Perth Children's Hospital, St John of God Hospital, Hollywood Private Hospital, all of which are playing a role now or have potential to play a role.

As part of what we are doing, working as a country and dealing with the challenge of the coronavirus, one of the things which happened following the medical advice, the decision of the National Security Committee, and ultimately the stewardship of the Prime Minister, was to implement the pandemic plan for coronavirus last Thursday. As part of that, one of the key elements has been to make sure that we are focusing on ensuring that people who come to Australia are here without any significant chance of bringing the disease. The Prime Minister has today added to the border protection measures by referring the cases of South Korea and Italy—each of which has had recent travel advisory upgrades—to the medical experts, the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee. That should inform our advice at a subsequent National Security Committee this week. In addition, though, in our work with the states and territories, whilst they have been focusing primarily on hospital preparedness, we have been focusing in particular on primary care and aged care, our elderly.

Whilst our children, as I mentioned earlier, are far less likely to contract and, in particular, to suffer from a severe form of coronavirus, our elderly are much more vulnerable. That is a global trend and a global challenge. Here in Australia we have taken a series of steps. Firstly, very early on, we provided significant information to the aged-care sector—as early as 7 February and again on 26 February—and, throughout, there's been constant liaison with that sector. At the moment, we are working with the sector, and there will be further meetings throughout the course of the week, to develop a specific aged-care preparedness plan. But I do note that Mr Sean Rooney, CEO of Leading Age Services Australia, said:

Providers are accustomed to dealing with influenza each winter and are adding to these protocols through the updated COVID-19 guidance from the Department of Health.

And Pat Sparrow, CEO of Aged & Community Services Australia, said:

We work with a vulnerable group, so every flu season we need to be ready to support these people. It is an evolving situation and we are constantly liaising with health authorities.

That work is something that we respect and appreciate. We thank the states and we thank the aged-care service providers and our general practitioners. We are focusing, as our top priority, on care for and protection of our older Australians.