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COVID-19 Update 27 March 2020 – Reflecting on this past week

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An empty waiting room on a Monday morning. Phones ringing off the hook.

If , last Friday, anyone had the described the week we have just had no-one would have believed it. Late Saturday afternoon we heard that the way General Practice had to operate would drastically change from Monday morning. Fortunately the Government sensed the same urgency and promptly escalated the alert level to 3 and then 4.

Patients socially distanced and being triaged from a safe distance by Jackie Morris

We had Sunday to prepare and communicate the changes and with the incredible cooperation and understanding of the people of Kawerau coped with this drastic change. Unable to use our waiting room all patients that called had to be called back by a clinical staff member and triaged as to whether a face to face visit was required or whether the issue could be managed with a virtual consult. Over a 100 patients were managed and 6 times the normal number of prescriptions were done despite the internet going down and the phone lines and cellular system being overloaded. This continued on Tuesday and Wednesday before tapering down on Thursday and Friday as the lockdown took effect.

Dr. Aidan Williams phone triaging a patient for a virtual consult or practice visit.
Makeshift barriers to keep reception staff a safe distance from patients in the waiting room

In the midst of this we started to run influenza vaccination clinics. These were entirely dependent on deliveries of vaccine orders but we managed to administer around 60 on Tuesday and Wednesday and almost 200 on Friday.

Nurse Shannin Howe administering an influenza vaccine in the car park

History was made today with Dr. Beth Walsh doing the first two video consultations from the Tarawera Medical Centre. This had been set up and tested on Wednesday and Thursday and used for 2 consultations on Friday. This allowed patients to be seen and assessed in their homes while under lockdown.

Well spaced patients waiting for a influenza vaccination

This week has been a steep and stressful learning curve for us but the amazing team at the Tarawera Medical Centre have done an incredible job with many doing extra hours and days at times at very short notice. New skills have had to be learnt fast and all have stepped up and made rapid progress. This effort has been made easy by the incredibly understanding, supportive and appreciative feedback of our patients.

A well spaced queue down Onslow St waiting for influenza vaccinations

It is easy to underestimate the importance of this lockdown. We have one chance to starve the coronavirus of the opportunity to spread. If we don’t take it seriously and do the job right we will pay a price we would rather not. Stay home and stay safe.

Influenza Vaccine Clinic Friday 27 March 2pm

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Our order of influenza vaccines finally arrived this morning so we will be running a clinic this afternoon from 2pm. This will again run at the PathLab side of the Medical Centre and we will keep going until we run out of vaccines or patients.

Please remember to keep your 2m spacing distance and bring a hat/jacket /umbrella in case the forecast rain develops. Spread the word so that as many people can get immunised as possible.

COVID-19 Update 25 March 2020

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After the craziness of the past 2 days things today were busy but smooth. It was great to have the Community Based Assessment Centre (CBAC) start operation in Whakatane. Dr. Rachel Shouler played a pivotal role as Clinical Director in getting this established and Dr. Beth Walsh worked the first shift of the CBAC. This is a drive through service at the Memorial Hall in Whakatane that is to assess anyone with respiratory symptoms and do swabs for testing if needed. This helps keep people at risk of having COVID-19 away from General Practice and allows us to keep doing what we need to for all the other usual problems.

As an essential service we remain open all our normal hours. Things have to work a bit differently at present. The waiting room is locked so if you phone and we make an appointment for you to come to the surgery just knock on the door and then stand back behind the red lines and wait for a nurse to open the door. They will ask you some questions and let you in when required. Help us by keeping the safe 2m distance apart.

We managed to administer another batch of influenza vaccines again today. This was again done from the PathLab side of the Medical Centre. We are still waiting on delivery of the vaccines we have ordered but did manage to source some locally today and after making a few calls to people who had missed out yesterday and a few more who had called in today we had a clinic up and running within 30 minutes. The jungle drums soon had a good line of people waiting and promptly vaccinated. We hope to have a good supply of vaccines within the next couple of days.

The influenza vaccine clinics will continue to run from the PathLab entrance. This means queueing outside so please remember your sunscreen and a sunhat and remember to keep your 2m distances apart. It has been really great to run these clinics and we really have appreciated the positive mood, patience and understanding of our patients. We’re in a tough situation together and I doubt there is a nicer community than the one we are privileged to serve in Kawerau.

Remember that it is crucial to stick to the rules of the lockdown. This is our one chance to do it right and avoid the explosion of cases that other countries are facing. Undermining the effort by breaking the rules will mean we do the hard yards but won’t reap the full benefit and so will prolong the pain.

COVID-19 Update 24 March 2020

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We have had another crazy busy day at the Tarawera Medical Centre with large numbers of people phoning. Because this means that every person has to be called back by a clinical staff member it is placing a huge load on staff even with the internet and phone lines not being an issue like yesterday.

A big part of this traffic has been people phoning for repeat scripts even when they have recently had a 3 month script done. This unnecessary early requesting of scripts is placing an extra burden on us.

As essential services the Medical Centre and Pharmacy will remain open normal hours throughout the next 4 week lockdown. There is no need to panic and order extra supplies “just in case”. As Dr. Lavelle so aptly stated to the crowd outside the Pharmacy when he was dropping off a batch of scripts “don’t let medicines become an issue like toilet paper” – there is no need to hoard either.

We managed to run our first influenza vaccine clinic through the PathLab entrance and administered our entire batch of vaccines. We have more on backorder but don’t yet have a delivery date. If they arrive tomorrow we will post on the website. At this stage it is only for the subsidised group of patients (over 65 or those with chronic heart or respiratory conditions or other chronic diseases).

Remember, we are in this together. We are here to help you but have to practice in a different way to protect everybody from illness. This is making it a lot more difficult for us so we need you to help us. Please be considerate and only ask for help with urgent issues at present. Asking for early repeat medicines is making it harder and makes it difficult for us to do our best for those that really need prompt attention.

COVID-19 Update 23 March 2020

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Today has been a crazy day with the change in the way we have to run the practice to keep our patients safe and with the escalation to pandemic alert level three.

Our team worked brilliantly under trying conditions with internet access lost and severe limitations on phone capacity due to the volume of calls. Despite this we managed to safely attend to every patient that arrived at the practice, issued over six times the number of scripts we do in the day and were continually on surgery landlines and personal mobile phones to deal with patient issues remotely.

It is important to emphasise that as an essential service the surgery and pharmacies remain operational regardless of the alert level. There is no need to panic and request scripts earlier than you normally would. We will be there to help deal with your issues when you need us.

We anticipate that tomorrow will run as smoothly as today but should be an improvement as the internet returned just before we closed at 6pm tonight. Spark is arranging additional phone lines for us and we will be exploring video consultation options. Tomorrow will also see the start of influenza vaccination clinics as advised in an earlier post today.