The directive, which came into effect at noon Wednesday, was triggered by the combined and crippling pressures created by wide-scale staff shortages across the state's health system and record-high COVID-hospitalisations, the latter of which is anticipated to well-exceed 2500 in a matter of weeks.

Grampians Health Service incident coordinator Matthew Hadfield confirmed the service's Wimmera campuses would be included in the new measures, however, each campus would experience varying degrees of impact depending on the area's COVID numbers.

"Each of the campuses within our organisation have a different scope of practice and different clinical capability," he said.

READ MORE:

"In Dimboola, we predict there will be little impact at all.

"Horsham, as the sub-regional service is the most likely to feel the impact should the demand of COVID positive patients increase rapidly.

"We always will stick by the clinical capabilities of our sites, including the nurse staffing, medical staff and support centres that are there."

The code brown declaration has been expected to last from four to six weeks and will ease pressure on the system ahead of the expected peak of hospital cases.

At the time of the announcement, 5000 health staff were unavailable across the state after they tested positive for COVID-19 or were identified as close contacts.

Mr Hadfield said, at least initially, there would be no major changes to how the service's hospitals had been operating in recent months.

Non-essential services such as elective surgery and allied health will be delayed across Grampians Health campuses, however, emergency and category one surgery will still continue under the new direction.

OTHER NEWS:

Staff leave may also be cancelled where necessary to address staff shortages.

Mr Hadfield said the health service was unlikely to request any staff come back from leave.

"We have an exhausted workforce that needs time to rest and recuperate," he said.

"We look to maintain staff leave wherever possible."

Under COVID streaming arrangements, the Ballarat Base Hospital receives all COVID-positive patients from across the Grampians Health Service's campuses.

Mr Hadfield said despite increased demand and staff shortages at Ballarat Base Hospital, the hospital would still function as a streaming site for Wimmera COVID-positive patients.

"We have a dedicated COVID ward and facilities across our intensive care units to be able to do that, this had been the case since the beginning of the pandemic," he said.

"We are not yet predicting that the demand will increase to such an extent that we will not be able to do that.

"If there were such a sudden increase in demand to the point where we need a further access to beds, all hospitals would be considered.

"But we would ensure that they have the clinical capacity to do that before adding any hospitals to the COVID positive steaming system."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:

Did you know you can receive updates straight to your inbox? To make sure you're up-to-date with news from across the region, sign up here.