DOCTORS in the community are asking for patience as skeletal staff deal with high numbers of COVID-19 inquiries as well as continuing to provide patient care.
Secretary of the Hunter GPs Association, Dr Lee Fong, said the issue that seemed to be causing a lot of confusion for many COVID-19 patients was the message from NSW Health that they could leave isolation at 10 days after a positive test 'as long as you have had nosymptoms for 72 hours'.
"This really should say 'as long as you have had no symptoms for 72 hours, or you are confident that any symptoms you still have are improving', because as long as your symptoms are improving by day 10 after a positive test, and you are otherwise healthy, you should not be infectious, and are unlikely to become very unwell," Dr Fong said.
Hunter GP Association spokeswoman Dr Fiona Van Leeuwen said the challenge facing most doctors was staffing levels, and asked people to be patient, and work out what they need and how urgently.
"The difficult part of GP practice at the moment is the furloughing of staff when people become contacts... so that is really the struggle that people may not realise is going on in the background," Dr Van Leeuwen said. Some GP clinics had been forced to close due to staff reductions based on their pre-existing plans for leave, which was overlapping with enforced leave due to COVID, she said.
"They're the tidal waves engulfing general practice and amongst all of that we are doing our best to make sure people get access to any kind of acute or sub-acute care they may need."
