Horsham's hospital will not take any patients battling coronavirus from Melbourne if metropolitan services are overwhelmed with numbers.
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But it could be a different story in Ararat.
As of Tuesday, 85 Victorians were in hospital with coronavirus infections, including 26 patients in intensive care.
Wimmera Health Care Group's acting director of Medical Services Dr John Gallichio said the Wimmera Base Hospital would not accommodate Melbourne patients.
"We are a regional health service and we look after regional people," he said.
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At the East Grampians Health Service, chief executive Andrew Freeman said there was already "a flow of patients coming backwards and forwards" between Ararat and Melbourne.
He said the health services in the Grampians had collaborated to create a "region cluster plan".
"For instance, we took a patient back over the weekend that was in a large Melbourne health service. They came back here, and had tested negative in Melbourne before they came back so we didn't need to isolate here," he said.
"We are admitting patients that may have covid symptoms, and we isolate and test them and wait for results to come back. At this point in time we haven't had any positives.
"If there was to be a positive test in the current environment, we would move that positive patient to Ballarat until they were at their capacity.
"We have always said we would take covid-positive patients if they were required, and we have plans in place for that as well."
Mr Freeman said the Department of Health and Human Services had a "cascading plan" in place to deal with demand on hospitals for coronavirus care.
"If Melbourne and Ballarat were to fall, we certainly are ready and prepared," he said.
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"We would most probably be doing minimal if any elective surgery if that happened, most probably only our most urgent category one patients, so we would be freeing up workforce and capacity.
"We would probably wind back community services if the state got into that situation as well, to increase our capacity to look after and treat those patients."
On Tuesday, the EGHS announced it would reduce its elective surgery progressively to three-quarters of the normal rate.
Dr Gallichio said Wimmera residents requiring medical procedures or consultancy in Melbourne would still be able to travel to the city for their treatment, even though it and the Mitchell Shire remains in stage three lockdown until August 19.
"The health service treating them may request for the patient to be tested locally for Covid-19 before they travelled," he said.
"Patients could take their usual mode of transport to get to their city appointments but if they are using public transport, I would advise that they wear a surgical mask and make sure it is applied properly."
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