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.

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.

The COVID-19/Coronavirus situation continues to evolve rapidly. For accurate up to date information visit www.covid19.govt.nz. The following points are extremely important to avoid compromising ongoing GP services to the community. At risk people arriving unannounced risk spreading disease and forcing medical staff into isolation;

As of Monday morning 23 March 2020;

Walk-in Clinics are suspended until further notice

The Medical Centre is closed to everyone unless they have been triaged by phone and asked to attend the surgery.

If you feel you need to be seen please phone and leave your phone number and email contact address and you will be contacted for triage by a member of our clinical staff and an appointment arranged if needed. Our priority is to see those who need to be seen while protecting them from risk

Advice from the NZ Medical Association and RNZCGP on Saturday 21 March is that we move to virtual consultations via phone, email or video to limit the risk of spreading illness in people congregating in surgery waiting rooms. This is going to place a large load on admin, nursing and medical staff so we need to ask that you only contact the surgery for the most urgent issues. Please try and use the email script request form to keep the phone lines as free as possible.

Stay home if you are sick

IF you have any of these symptoms:

fever
cough
shortness of breath
sneezing or a runny nose
THEN call your GP, before you visit.

If you do not have a GP call Healthline (for free) on 0800 358 5453.

These symptoms do not necessarily mean you have COVID-19. The symptoms are similar to other illnesses that are much more common, such as colds and flu.

You also need to:

stay at home
avoid close or prolonged contact with other people
stop having visitors to your home, and
stay off public transport

ACC and WINZ certificates can at present be completed by telephone consultation so please phone to see if this can be arranged for your specific need.

With the Prime Minister’s Saturday request that people over the age of 70 or with underlying medical conditions stay home if at all possible, practice visits for routine 3 monthly reviews and prescriptions should be deferred. Please use the repeat prescription form , Manage my Health or phone for repeat prescriptions which can be faxed to the Pharmacy of your choice.

These are challenging times and we will need to adapt to manage and avoid overwhelming the health system. Social distancing will help to limit the spread of winter colds and ‘flu as well as COVID-19. This has to be our priority at present so we appreciate your patience and understanding as we negotiate these challenges together.