Cyclone Alfred: Advice for healthcare providers in the Brisbane South PHN region
Cyclone Alfred is projected to intensify and make landfall near Brisbane between Thursday 6 March and early Friday 7 March 2025.
Brisbane South PHN urges all primary health care providers to prepare for Cyclone Alfred, which is expected to bring severe weather conditions, including strong winds, heavy rainfall, and potential flooding to areas across South East Queensland and the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales.
Local residents are advised to prepare homes and properties for cyclones, severe storms and flooding, and heed all advice and emergency warnings issued by local and state governments. Visit the Get Ready Queensland website for further information and advice for those potentially in the path of Cyclone Alfred.
Disaster and emergency planning for your practice or health service
Brisbane South PHN advises all primary health care providers in the region to ensure that business continuity plans, or practice emergency response plans are up to date, and that staff are familiar with procedures in the event that your service or practice is affected by Cyclone Alfred.
Follow your local council’s disaster dashboard
Disaster dashboards or websites are provided by Queensland’s local governments (councils) to deliver important information to local communities during and after disaster events.
Disaster dashboards generally include information about:
weather warnings
evacuation centre openings and locations
river heights
road conditions and closures
power and phone outages
school closures
emergency news
helpful contacts.
View the full list of local government disaster dashboards on the Queensland Government website.
Primary care support from Brisbane South PHN
Please contact Brisbane South PHN via support@bsphn.org.au if you identify any issues or concerns in relation to primary health care service delivery in your region.
Keep the community up to date with your service availability during and after Cyclone Alfred
To help the community find available health services during and after the natural disaster via the healthdirect Service Finder, Brisbane South PHN is helping to ensure the National Health Services Directory is up to date.
If your service is impacted – closed, reduced hours, reduced service offerings – please update your clinic listing as soon as possible.
How to update your listing
Ways to update a clinic listing in the National Health Services Directory so current information is visible for consumers:
|
Option |
Looks like |
|---|---|
|
Please visit the Service Finder, look up your listing, scroll down to the bottom and click ‘suggest an edit’. This will open a form and enable you to enter any changes you would like to be made to your listing. |
|
|
If you are too busy and unable to action a change in hours, contact Brisbane South PHN on support@bsphn.org.au and we can make the updates to the NHSD on your behalf. |
Excel spreadsheet supplied to PHN to complete and return daily to NHSD. |
|
If your clinic uses an online appointment booking service, you can update your calendar to reflect changes in availability. This will be reflected via Service Finder. |
|
Message on service impacts for the community
For your information, the healthdirect Service Finder will show the following message:
Impact of Cyclone Alfred on health services
Many health services may not be operating as usual. We aim to keep health service information in impacted areas up to date. Check the Service Finder below for open times and appointment availability before calling the clinic.
To seek advice or assistance in Queensland call 13 HEALTH (13 43 25 68), otherwise call Healthdirect on 1800 022 222. If you need urgent help from police, fire or ambulance services, call triple zero (000).
Links to resources
Brisbane South PHN’s disaster readiness pages: Disaster readiness | Brisbane South PHN
Queensland Government’s disaster management websites:
RACGP’s information for GPs in disaster-affected areas: RACGP - Natural disasters
Support for mental health:
Medicare Mental Health (Head to Health) can connect you to free mental health support. Phone 1800 595 212 for mental health advice and guidance or visit medicarementalhealth.gov.au.