South West Healthcare's COVID ward stretched over the weekend

To deal with the spike in demand, chief executive Craig Fraser said the hospital was exploring treating non-COVID patients at Warrnambool's St John of God hospital.

"If COVID admissions increase we will be ready to flex our capacity up to admit more people with COVID," Mr Fraser said.

"We are hoping for the best and planning for the worst, and with that in mind St John's are an important part of this planning.

"We are confident that anyone who contracts COVID locally will be treated locally in coming weeks."

There were eight COVID-19 patients being treated at the Warrnambool Base Hospital on Tuesday and while SWH had so far avoided invoking an emergency declaration, it was still dealing with a system under stress, Mr Fraser said.

This includes a spike in incidents of violence and aggression at the Warrnambool Base Hospital in the last week.

"Although the majority of people are incredibly supportive and understanding we'd like to remind the community that our staff are doing the best they can and that frustration around screening at the front reception, or around restricted visiting hours is not an excuse to physically or verbally assault our staff either in person or over the phone," Mr Fraser said.

While Mr Fraser said a code brown, which involved staff on leave being brought back to work, wasn't currently necessary, he reiterated the importance of people avoiding the hospital if possible.

"We have put in place as many systems and processes as possible to ensure that there are options for people to seek care without presenting to the Warrnambool Base Hospital, and we'll continue to work with regional partners and local GPs to help share the load and provide the best care locally," he said.

"The system is under stress as staff are away isolating and as demand grows for testing, vaccinations and COVID care but it is so far manageable given the changes implemented last week.

"This is predominantly due to the dedication of our staff to make themselves available to work when needed and to return from planned leave earlier than planned."

The Victorian state government has called a "code brown" for the public health system, however SWH is not affected at this stage.

The emergency declaration applies to all Melbourne metropolitan hospitals and six major regional hospitals: Barwon Health, Grampians Health, Bendigo Health, Goulburn Valley Health, Albury Wodonga Health and La Trobe Regional Hospital.

It will come into effect at midday tomorrow, Wednesday January 19.

The declaration allows hospitals to bring staff back from leave, move staff into areas of the hospital where demand is greatest and cancel lower priority services.

The move is aimed to free up resources and staff to be allocated to where they are needed most and ease pressure on the overwhelmed system.

Victorian deputy premier James Merlino said the state had "reached a point in our health system where it's juggling severe workforce shortages".

He said the co-ordinated code brown approach would "help ease the pressure on individual hospitals by better sharing the load across our system".

SWH is not yet directly affected by the declaration, but that may change.

Chief executive Craig Fraser said SWH was "very fortunate that we have a committed workforce who are already returning early from leave to assist us through this period and this is ensuring we continue to provide services that are deemed high priority".

"Whilst code brown provides additional powers we do not believe these are necessary at present, however we remain on standby should we need to move to code brown."

SWH are less impacted at this point, but they can declare a code brown if they determine it is necessary, Barwon Health chief executive Frances Diver said.

Barwon Health is working collaboratively with all the public hospitals across the region to and will continue to accept admissions from across the region, she said.

"SWH has starting admitting patients from their local area and Hamilton will soon commence admitting patients from their local area. Most patients requiring intensive care will be transferred to University Hospital Geelong," Ms Diver said.

"From time to time, we have shared staff across the region, in particular sending teams for testing and vaccinations clinics.

"Public and private hospital services across the region are working together effectively as one system."

Victorian deputy state controller Adam Horsburgh said private hospitals like St John of God Warrnambool will have a role to play, especially for deferred surgeries.

"Moving patients to somewhere like Warrnambool may happen," he told The Standard. "We would look to all of the services in the south-west to come up with that regional plan about how they [Barwon Health] can best manage demand and access to care across the whole of that region."

University Hospital Geelong today opened a third COVID-19 ward.

More COVID-19 patient streaming hospitals will be coming online in the regions, including south-west Victoria.

"Barwon will work out where in the south-west that will be so more hospitals are able to accommodate COVID positive patients over the next few weeks," Mr Horsburgh, who is also the chief executive of Austin Health, said.

"I do expect that the admissions will continue to grow."

St John of God Warrnambool Hospital is continuing to work in close collaboration with SWH and Barwon Health, chief executive Dr Shane Kelly said: "to provide capacity and any other support as requested to increase the capacity of our health care system during this fast changing and unpredictable time. This includes continuing to undertake a range of elective surgeries and diagnostic procedures.

"We remain ready to respond to any changes required by the Department of Health."

At this stage SJOG will not be activating a code brown in any of its Victorian hospitals.

"We will monitor this situation closely to ascertain if we need to review our position and we will continue to play a very active role in supporting our public health service partners as we respond to the current challenges in Victoria," Dr Kelly said.

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