COVID Vaccination Healthline takes its millionth call

The COVID Vaccination Healthline team who despite the current outbreak are working tirelessly to support people with information and booking support, reached a new milestone yesterday when the one-millionth (1,000,000th) call was taken.

The team, which provides COVID vaccination information and helps people who are unable to book online, has been handling an average of 5,000 calls a day since the service was set up in mid-February this year.

Andrew Slater CEO of Whakarongorau Aotearoa // New Zealand Telehealth Services who run New Zealand’s Telehealth Services said today “The one-millionth call was taken at 8:03am yesterday morning by our frontline kaimahi Sarah, who is studying and works from home in Christchurch for the service.”

“She supported a person calling from the central North Island who needed to reschedule their appointment because they were feeling unwell.”

“Sarah is one of the more than 2,500 people managing calls on the COVID Vaccination Healthline.

These incredible people are part of our communities across Aotearoa and are based in contact centres in Auckland, Kaikohe, Kaitāia, Hastings, Rotorua, Wellington, and Christchurch as well as working from their homes.”

“By its nature, our work is unseen. Our clinicians and advisors are at the end of a phone line providing critical advice, support, and information. What we do know is that calls to us are likely to be the most important call that person make that day.”

“So to ensure we are as connected and as engaged as we can be with the people we help, nearly 40% of our Healthline services workforce identify as Māori or Pasifika.”

Across all services, our frontline staff can speak 30 languages; we have more than 500 Te Reo and Pacific language speakers; and we have access to interpreter services for over 300 languages,” Andrew Slater said.

The busiest day on record since the COVID Vaccination Healthline launched was on 19 August 2021 when our frontline kaimahi spoke to more than 24,000 people.

In addition to calling in, the service has also called out to over 130,000 people who had been invited but have not yet booked their vaccination, and this will continue to be a focus of the service.

In the last week the Healthline and COVID Healthline services have had three of their busiest days ever, out pacing the records sent in 2020. The organisation continues to run its surge plans.