Ebola Expert Panel on Infection Control

[Lyn Gilbert]

Dear Colleagues,

I know there has been some comment and understandable disquiet about the announcement in the media last week about my appointment as “Ebola Tsar” and that I will oversee Australia’s response to Ebola.
This was misleading and incorrect and I can understand that it annoyed many of you as much as it did me.

Let me explain what really happened (and what Sophie Scott, the journalist responsible for the story) was told.

During planning for Australia’s response to Ebola, the Communicable Disease Network Australia (CDNA – State and Territory health department communicable disease branch reps) and the Australian Health Protection Primary Committee (AHPPC chief health officers, chaired by Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Baggoley), decided that they needed infection prevention and control expertise and advice.

Professor Baggoley asked me to chair an Expert Advisory Panel to provide this. The brief is to provide the best available advice to both CDNA and AHPPC about all matters relating to IPC – mainly, but not exclusively, in hospitals.

Membership includes at least 4 ICPs (mostly nominated by the ACIPC), 4 ID physicians, an epidemiologist/public health physician and a hospital operations person.

This panel (let alone the “Tsar”) will not be “overhauling infection control in all Australian hospitals” – that is the responsibility of State and Territory health departments and individual hospital/local health district administrations. What we aim to do, is to provide the best possible evidence (or expert consensus if evidence is lacking) the CDNA and AHPPC about how best to care for any Australian patient unfortunate enough to be infected with Ebola and ensure that the healthcare workers who look after them and the community remain safe.

We will be consulting the ACIPC members extensively during this exercise. I hope this clarifies the position and will allay your concerns..

Best wishes

Lyn Gilbert

Professor Lyn Gilbert,
Director, Infection Prevention & Control
Western Sydney Local Health Network

Clinical Professor, University of Sydney,
Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity,
Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine

Level 3, Institute of Clinical Pathology & Medical Research,
Westmead Hospital. PO Box 533, Wentworthville
New South Wales, Australia 2145

Phone (+612) 98456252
Mobile 0423593385
email lyn.gilbert@sydney.edu.au

MESSAGES POSTED TO THIS LIST ARE SOLELY THE OPINION OF THE AUTHOR, AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE OPINION OF ACIPC.

The use of trade/product/commercial brand names through the list is discouraged by ACIPC. If you wish to discuss specific reference to products or services by brand or commercial names, please do this outside the list.

Archive of all messages are available at http://aicalist.org.au/archives – registration and login required.

Replies to this message will be directed back to the list. To create a new message send an email to aicalist@aicalist.org.au

To send a message to the list administrator send an email to aicalist-request@aicalist.org.au.

You can unsubscribe from this list be sending ‘signoff aicalist’ (without the quotes) to listserv@aicalist.org.au

[Author]

Posts