Information vacuum has GP worried
’Radio silence overnight’ when Queensland Health assumes control of virus movement reports
A LACK of communication from Cairns Hospital about contact tracing has a local GP concerned an information vacuum could lead to misinformation and distrust as the COVID-19 crisis worsens.
Last week, ahead of the first Cairns case of the virus, Cairns and Hinterland Hospital Service severed all pandemic-related communication not given the green light from Queensland Health head office in Brisbane.
Now with five positive cases and almost a week since the first diagnosis, no information has been made available to the public on places visited by infected patients.
Cairns GP Aileen Traves said a centralised flow of information from Brisbane meant Cairns Hospital staff had been directed not to release any information.
“We suddenly lost all information from our local team, it was literally radio silence overnight,” she said. “We went from having good information coming out of our local health service to nothing.”
The GP at Thrive Medical in Cairns North said the absence of information on patient contact tracing in the case of Cairns’ first diagnosis fuelled social media speculation.
She said this had led to rumours about Cairns venues the affected tourists might have visited.
“At the time it would have had a major impact on their business,” she said.
“(And) there are some valid reasons around patient confidentially why that information is not being widely shared which is part of the state management plan.”
However as a community member, Dr Traves said in regard to new case disclosure there was a problem.
“We would like to know what is going on.
“We only had small cases here but I wanted to know that they were doing their best to contain it and we only got a Queensland Health letter to say ‘contact tracing was under way.’ And that’s really concerning when there is only a few cases in our community,” she said.
A Queensland Health spokeswoman said contact tracing was standard procedure to prevent the spread of all serious disease.
“As part of this process, we speak to the patient to identify anyone who might have had close contact with them during their infectious window,” she said.
“(However) only those who are considered as a close contact to these cases need to be aware and cautious. These people will be contacted directly by our public health clinicians.”