HEALTH PRESSURE MUST BE EASED

THE mounting pressure the Gold Coast’s health system is facing is a cause for serious concern. While they have held up strongly during COVID-19, the chairman of the city’s Primary Health Network is now warning emergency departments are struggling against a spike in respiratory illnesses.

The Gold Coast’s four respiratory clinics were booked out on Thursday because under COVID-19 rules, doctors at these practices are the only medical professionals in the city, aside from ED doctors, allowed to see people with respiratory symptoms.

If the Gold Coast is already struggling with this, it raises the question of how the city will fare if we are faced with a serious COVID outbreak.

The pressures the public health services have been under have made headlines in recent weeks and it is clear the state government must move quickly to reassure a worried public that they will be looked after.