Metro Auckland Hospitals working closely to provide safe care

Metro Auckland Hospitals working closely to provide safe care

Hospitals across Metro Auckland are working closely with the Northern Region Health Co-ordination Centre to safely manage anyone in the region needing hospital level care.

This follows a positive case being confirmed as being treated at North Shore Hospital prior to being diagnosed with COVID-19 who could have been infectious during their admission.

Patients needing emergency care are being diverted from North Shore Hospital to other Emergency Departments across metro Auckland for now.

There are approximately 120 staff at North Shore Hospital who were rostered on and may have been in the affected areas at the same time as the positive patient. Of these, we know 30 had direct contact with the patient.

These staff have been stood down and are following public health advice. Testing is being set up at the hospital for staff. We are working on plans with other DHBs to source staff from out of the region as required.

Approximately 107 patients were in the affected areas at the same time as the positive patient. Of these, 29 remain admitted as inpatients and are being isolated and tested for COVID-19. Seventy-eight have been discharged and are self-isolating at home and are being followed-up by public health officials.

Testing

Yesterday testing centres in Auckland had their busiest day ever. Around 24,000 swabs were taken across Auckland, with around 8,000 swabs at community testing centres and around 16,000 at general practice and urgent care clinics. This was a 50% increase on our previous busiest day.

The very high demand has meant very long queues at many of the testing centres across Auckland. We want to thank the community for their incredible response and for their patience while our teams work tirelessly to test everyone.

Police are helping to manage traffic flows at our sites.

There are 13 community testing centres available for testing across Auckland today including three new pop up community testing centres set up yesterday at Pakuranga, St Johns and Mangere East.

There will be a dedicated testing centre opening today in the Avondale area for Avondale College staff, students and their whanau. This is to ensure that the college community can be tested in a place close to where they live. These will be dedicated testing centres for the college community only and not available for the general public.

We will be opening additional pop up testing sites in the coming days to ensure everyone who wants a test can get one.

We are however expecting huge demand again today, queues are already building and people should prepare to be waiting for some time and remain calm. Please wear a mask, take food and water with you, take a book to read or something to watch.

Auckland health authorities are urging anyone wanting to get a test today to please call your GP, a designated practice or urgent care clinic to see if they have availability before attending a community testing centre.

We understand that people may be feeling anxious, but it’s important the right people get access to testing and we need your help with this.

• If you were not at a location of interest at the stated times and you have no symptoms you do not need to be tested.
• If you were at the locations of interest at the times stated, you need to get a test.
• If you have symptoms get a test.
• If you do have to wait for a test, our frontliners ask for your patience and empathy, please be kind.

For up-to-date information on testing locations in Auckland, visit www.arphs.health.nz/covid19test. For up-to-date info on all testing locations, visit www.healthpoint.co.nz/covid-19/

Vaccination

Almost all General Practices and all pharmacies that are providing COVID-19 vaccinations in the metro Auckland region are open today.
Eight out of our thirteen community vaccination centres are operating today. The centres that are open include Manurewa, Ōtara, Henderson, Westgate, Mount Wellington, Auckland CBD, Albany and Tāmaki (Glen Innes).

The centres that remain closed for now include Birkenhead, Epsom, Highbrook, Pukekohe and Takanini. These centres remain closed as we have urgently diverted staff to support the surge in testing today following the announcement of further cases and related locations of interest.

We are working to re-open the remaining centres as quickly as possible and will have more reopening from tomorrow. Most centres will be operating at reduced capacity due to the need for social distancing measures.

We are issuing text and email advice to people to let them know whether they should attend their appointment or whether they will need to reschedule, so please keep an eye out for these.