Hand sanitisers an option for rail network to deal with coronavirus

On Thursday, NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant appeared before a budget estimates committee.

Labor's representative on the panel Walt Secord pointed out that hand sanitisers had been made available in state parliament to mitigate the risk of coronavirus.

Mr Secord asked whether the government should also make them available in high-traffic areas like shopping malls and train stations.

"We are working with Transport [for NSW] on how to have access to hand sanitisers in those environments," Dr Chant said.

The Chief Health Officer said the supply of hand sanitiser was one of a range of strategies needed to deal with the risk of coronavirus.

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"We need to make sure sick people are not on going on the trains, we need to make sure that people take their own hand wash," she said.

"It doesn't matter how many hand sanitiser stations you put in because ... we're still going to have the challenge of backlogs and of queuing [at those stations]."

Dr Chant mentioned that Transport for NSW was focusing on increased level of cleaning of "high traffic points" that commuters would touch.

She added that Transport for NSW would also need to deal with the increased risk of commuters slipping on hand sanitiser that ended up on the floor at train stations.

Last week Labor's health spokesman Ryan Park called on the government to make hand sanitiser available at public places, as it is in parliament house.

"Quite frankly, if this is good enough for those of us up at Macquarie Street, then it should be good enough for everyone across the Illawarra and South Coast," he said.