Delivering healthcare to the isolated Chatham Islands is never simple but the pandemic has added extra stress and complications, says Chatham Islands Health Centre clinical nurse manager Sally Lanauze
With 20 cruise ships visiting Stewart Island this summer, the island’s only resident health professional had a watchful and wary start to the COVID-19 lockdown
Delivering healthcare to the isolated Chatham Islands is never simple but the pandemic has added extra stress and complications, says Chatham Islands Health Centre clinical nurse manager Sally Lanauze
In the first days of lockdown, practices’ daily cash flow dropped by an estimated 80 per cent as in-person consults plummeted and virtual consults relied on patients paying online
The swift shift to virtual patient consults in the COVID-19 crisis has seen ACC and insurance companies respond by recognising, at least temporarily, virtual consults as being the same as in-person consults
The mobile surgical bus is back offering elective surgery after being on standby during the Level 4 lockdown as a back-up surgical unit for Canterbury DHB
Flu swabbing won’t go ahead as usual at sentinel general practices this winter because this year, COVID-19 test centres will be used for flu surveillance swabbing
Southern Community Laboratories’ clinical microbiologists and scientists help answer New Zealand Doctor’s questions on the COVID-19 test process from swab to results, the reagent supply and whether flu testing is the same process
Listening, soothing and keeping a relationship with vulnerable patients struggling in the lockdown is an important role for GPs and nurses, believes
Christchurch GP Jeremy Baker