Hello members,

Earlier today the Minister for Health announced that a private psychiatric inpatient facility has been hit with an outbreak of the coronavirus. HACSU Officials have been working closely with the Department of Health to ensure the safety of both workers and consumers. While we cannot advise which facility has been affected, we know that there are fourteen known cases linked to this outbreak, five are admitted consumers, five staff and four close contacts.

All workers and consumers will be tested regardless of symptomatology and quarantine measures are in place. A thorough cleaning and decontamination process will be taking place at the facility and no new admissions are being accepted, nor are transfers occurring, group therapy or outpatient activities. We will keep members updated if any further information becomes available in regarding to this situation.
 

Late yesterday evening, the COVID-19 Omnibus (Emergency Measures) Bill 2020 was passed by Victorian Parliament. As well as a raft of other measures, the bill provides support to people who have been injured at work and are unable to return or find employment due to the impacts of their injury and coronavirus. It provides up to six additional months of weekly WorkCover payments for long term injured workers who are due to transition off WorkCover weekly payments. This will be backdated to apply to anyone who has received notice from 1 December 2019 about the termination of their payments at 130 weeks. You can read more about the bill here.

We also wanted to remind members that from Monday, you’ll find this daily update only on the HACSU Member MyPage . Log in today to access news and more great benefits including discount shopping and HACSU factsheets! 

https://mypage.hacsu.asn.au/

In unity,

HACSU.