GP centres may be at risk of mass closures

Doctors are insisting people phone ahead instead of presenting to medical centres with coronavirus symptoms, or risk major disruption and even mass closures to health services across the country.

Yesterday director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield confirmed New Zealand’s second case of the Covid-19 coronavirus had presented at two separate medical centres, where she sought advice and treatment.

Dr Larry Jordan, a Wellington-based GP and chairman of Tu¯ Ora Compass Health, said it was important that people phoned ahead if they suspected they had Covid-19.

If people started turning up at doctors’ surgeries and/or medical centres unannounced when they were displaying symptoms, the risk was an ‘‘overload’’ on strained facilities. ‘‘Everybody’s already very busy,’’ Jordan said.

Previously, the New Zealand Nurses’ Organisation and Association of Salaried Medical Specialists warned of a coronavirus crisis, where health staff would be put ‘‘at breaking point’’ as resources were stretched to cope with an outbreak.

Jordan said if several people started showing up and required complex infection control equipment or procedures, isolation rooms, and cleanup, it would be ‘‘enormously disruptive’’ to existing health services.

GPs and medical centres did not have the resources to deal with such cases, he said.

A secondary risk was if a genuine case of Covid-19 was to turn up to a clinic, all staff working there may have to be sent home for a fortnight’s quarantine, Jordan said.

Turning up unannounced was unhelpful and irresponsible, he said. It could result in a ‘‘snowball’’ of decreasing medical services.

Dr Kate Baddock, chairwoman of the New Zealand Medical Association, said it was extremely important for the protection of the public and of health workers, that people who displayed symptoms phoned Healthline. ‘‘What should not be done is the person should not just front up to a medical centre. They risk everybody if they do that.’’

The new patient ‘‘didn’t follow what’s been coming over the airwaves’’, Baddock said.

To put others at risk was ‘‘completely inappropriate’’, unacceptable and dangerous.

The person could have infected everybody in the buildings they visited, Baddock said.

If patients continued to show up in an ad hoc manner, it could force mass closures, she said.