Influenza vaccinations will be available for patients over the age of 65 from Wednesday 14 April.
We will again be running afternoon vaccination clinics from the PathLab side of the building in the afternoons from 2:30 to 4pm. These will run as they did last year outside the building and will depend on vaccine availability.
Influenza vaccines for patients under 65 with chronic conditions will be available from May. Currently available vaccines are for over 65 only.
We will again be running an influenza vaccination clinic on Wednesday 15 April at 2:30pm. This will again be at the PathLab side of the Medical Centre and will run until we run out of vaccines or patients. If you are over 65 or under 65 with a chronic medical condition please attend to get your funded vaccine done.
Please queue outside the fence and don’t block the ramp. Remember to space at least 2m apart, bring a sunhat/sunscreen/umbrella and wear sleeves that can be easily lifted to expose the upper arm so that we can administer the immunisation without delay.
Our backorder of vaccines was delivered today so we will again be running an influenza vaccination clinic on Thursday 2 April at 2:00pm. This will again be at the PathLab side of the Medical Centre and will again run until we run out of vaccines or patients. At this stage we are still only able to offer vaccination to those eligible for funded vaccines.
Please queue outside the fence and don’t block the ramp. Remember to space at least 2m apart, bring a sunhat/sunscreen/umbrella and wear sleeves that can be easily lifted to expose the upper arm so that we can administer the immunisation without delay.
Our latest Cornerstone certificate arrived last week which was nice after all the work put in to complete our reaccreditation cycle. Fellowship of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners is the basic qualification required for a doctor to practice without requiring oversight. Beyond that are numerous post-graduate diplomas, masters degrees and even doctorates in General Practice that reflect higher level study and skills. None of these qualifications reflect the quality of the practice that the doctor works in which what Cornerstone addresses by externally assessing to ensure policies and procedures are in place to ensure a qualified doctor is practicing in a quality environment.
This link to the list of accredited practices currently shows that Tarawera Medical Centre and two Opotiki practices are the only in the Eastern Bay of Plenty that have currently successfully completed this comprehensive quality assessment. Well done to all our staff who again put in all the hard work to achieve this.
Some of the Tarawera team when our Cornerstone certificate arrived
The drop-in clinics we have been running over the past few months have been very convenient and with the winter season we are extending the morning clinic to 11:30 so that from 8:00 to 11:30 patients can just drop in without needing to phone for an appointment. This service operates again on a Friday afternoon from 4:30 to 5:30 for those that need to be seen before the weekend. Because we have 3 to 4 doctors on duty every morning we still have booked appointments for those that like to book a specific appointment time and don’t want to wait in the first come first served drop-in queue for a non-urgent problem.