While NSW Health will screen all COVID-19 cases and “escalate those with known higher risk for increased support”, low-risk patients will self-manage and will receive “automated medical clearance” text messages releasing them from isolation.
Recent surveys sent to GPs by the state’s 10 primary health networks showed roughly two per cent of almost 3000 practices have volunteered to care for COVID-19 patients in the community, Dr McMullen said.
Long lines for COVID-19 testing at Macquarie Park in north-west Sydney on Wednesday.Credit:James Brickwood
“The confluence of huge numbers of people needing boosters and soaring cases needing GP care will drive the workforce to the brink,” Dr McMullen said. “Only about two per cent of general practices in NSW have so far responded to calls to participate in care of COVID-19 patients.”
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Dr Karen Price said the increase in funding was welcomed but it “was not a panacea”.
“It won’t solve every problem in front of us. General practices are under the pump and in coming months will face the challenge of vaccinating young children, a task that is more complex and time-consuming than vaccinating adults, and delivering booster vaccines,” Dr Price said.
In October, NSW’s primary health networks sent expression of interest forms to general practices assessing interest in managing patients with COVID-19.
Wentworth Healthcare CEO, Lizz Reay, said whilst “several practices” in the Nepean Blue Mountains area had formally volunteered to look after COVID-positive patients in the community, most expected they would need to provide care, but there were “concerns around how this will work practically”.
Campbelltown GP Ken McCroary said doctors were facing “unimaginable demands”.
“We are still having to look after our regular chronic health issues, we are preparing for a massive health deficit for patients who have been left behind,” Dr McCroary said.
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“We are seeing increasing late diagnosis for breast cancer, bowel cancer and at least a 15 per cent reduction in number of melanomas we are seeing. We are worried people aren’t getting skin checks.
“GPs don’t have the capacity and nursing and allied health aren’t properly funded. They are completely demoralised and confused by constantly moving targets.”
A Bankstown GP who requested anonymity said she and her colleagues were exhausted after two years of the pandemic. Her clinic will help administer boosters but wants the state government to introduce better protections for practitioners.
She said basic measures such as masks and QR code check-ins should be mandated at GP clinics, particularly as customers were regularly presenting with COVID-19 and many refused to wear masks.
“Perrottet’s position on reducing the interval [for the booster shots] is fair enough, but protect us as well. On the most part people were complying when it was mandatory. We’re all a bit frustrated,” she said.
With Natassia Chrysanthos
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GPs at breaking point as COVID patients told to self-manage care
Source: Philippines Alive
