NEWS DESK
More hospital staff in isolation
STUDENTS at Frankston High School have started a road safety campaign to remember their classmate Dylan Briggs (pictured top row, middle, with thumbs up). Picture: Supplied
Safety campaign remembers student BY CLAUDIA SKUBEL THE family of a Frankston High School student killed while riding his bike have joined hands with his classmates to create a road safety campaign in his memory. Dylan Briggs, aged 14, was tragically struck and killed as he rode home from school in March earlier this year. The “Chill Out and Look About” project was created by his family and classmates in order to improve road safety awareness for all road users. Dylan’s classmate, Kelly Gilbert, said “the Chill Out and Look About campaign is a reminder of the importance of awareness and caution when travelling, whether by foot or behind the wheel.” So far this year 142 lives have been
lost on Victoria’s roads, Chill Out and Look About aims to push that number towards zero. Frankston High School’s director of student leadership and community engagement Sarah Bahramis said “from the moment the students in the class found out that he’d been in this accident, they wanted to do something just to make sure this didn’t happen again.” “I’m so proud of the students. It’s amazing as a teacher to watch the students be empowered, (…) to have a call to action and to really put that in place and then actually see it succeed,” she said. “Knowing and seeing that something actually positive, we believe, has come out of this, hopefully it makes people just stop and think.”
The group of high school students have been working tirelessly throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to set up the initiative and begin making a difference. Teaching resources, including interactive workshops for primary aged students, have been developed by the students to bring road safety lessons into the classroom. Students are also advocating for the speed limit in the area Dylan was struck to be changed from 70 kmph to 60 kmph. The campaign’s debut short film, “Dylan’s story”, has already been viewed around 20,000 times. To learn more about the initiative or make a donation, visit the Chill Out and Look About website chilloutlookabout.org
BY LAURA GREEN MORE than 600 Frankston Hospital staff members have been sent into isolation. A total of 618 staff members were sent into isolation after an outbreak of COVID-19 cases at the hospital this month. As of 29 August, 68 cases have been linked to the hospital. The Acute Medical Surgical Unit, Surgical Short Stay Unit and the 5GN wards are temporarily closed to patient admissions while the cardiology, mental health, ICU, and maternity wards remain open. “The safety and wellbeing of our staff, our patients and our community is our utmost priority and we are doing all we can to help slow the spread of this virus,” Peninsula Health CEO Felicity Topp said. Peninsula Health have announced that it is working closely with “skilled prevention experts” to review its COVID-19 hygiene practices and
policies following the outbreak. An extension on contact tracing has been implemented, a hospital spokesperson said. Last week the DHHS reported that 449 active COVID-19 cases are attributed to healthcare workers, about 10 per cent of which are at Frankston Hospital. Peninsula Health confirmed testing will continue for all asymptomatic staff, which is a common precautionary measure for Australia’s hospital workers. All patients who were discharged prior to the discovery of the outbreak were interviewed for close contact tracing to reduce the spread of coronavirus in the community. The hospital has encouraged pregnant parents to continue coming to the hospital for care if they had any concerns about their babies, but announced admissions to the paediatrics centre are closed for now due to high demand.
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1 September 2020
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