With confirmed COVID-19 positive cases in Chinderah and a confirmed case from today’s Sydney numbers reportedly having visited venues on the Mid North Coast last week, North Coast clinicians are encouraged to visit the NSW Health website.
NSW Health is currently undertaking urgent case investigations and further information will be provided as soon as it is available.
Where venues may have already been identified as potential sites of concern, NSW Health is contacting people known to have been at those places to provide instructions.
Northern NSW Local Health District (NNSWLHD) has advised ‘there are more than 40 close contacts, including all staff members and other visitors, who are self-isolating after two COVID-19 cases attended the Ampol Service Station at Chinderah near Murwillumbah overnight on Tuesday 13 and the morning of Wednesday 14 July.’
North Coast primary care clinicians are encouraged to remain vigilant and continue to practise COVID-safe measures at all times.
Our region still has the same restrictions as outlined on NSW Health’s regional and rural NSW webpage — check this link regularly for any changes.
Testing clinic locations
NNSWLHD has advised that additional resources were added over the weekend at testing clinics in the Tweed region. Clinics currently open in the Tweed area are:
- The Tweed Hospital, Solander Street, Tweed Heads
- QML Pathology Drive through, Tweed Heads Bowls Club, Cnr Wharf & Florence
- Streets
- South Tweed Heads 4Cyte Pathology Drive-through and Walk-in Clinic, 157 – 161
- Minjungbal Drive, Tweed Head
- Tweed Heads Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology, 38-44 Boyd Street, Tweed Heads
- Murwillumbah Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology, 14 King Street, Murwillumbah
- Murwillumbah Respiratory Clinic, 14 King Street, Murwillumbah
Check opening hours and find more testing locations and clinics across NSW.
Clinician resources and supports available
General practices and other primary health care providers, particularly in the Tweed and Mid North Coast parts of our region, are reminded about the MBS COVID-19 telehealth extension and encouraged to offer telehealth services to mitigate their risk of exposure to COVID-19.
Healthy North Coast has several ways to support you in this. See our HealthPathways COVID-19 page on Telehealth and our Primary Care Impact page on increasing patient and staff safety during COVID-19 (includes a PDSA and other shared experience from North Coast practices).
Get resources, information and guidance for general practice from NSW Health.
Local outbreak preparedness and response
In consultation with local clinicians and community, Healthy North Coast has developed three frameworks to support local primary healthcare services, residential aged care facilities and Aboriginal communities responding to a positive COVID-19 case notification, cluster or outbreak:
- COVID-19 Response Framework for Aboriginal Communities on the North Coast
- COVID-19 Residential Aged Care Facilities GP Framework
- COVID-19 GP Response Framework.
In the event of an outbreak in our region, we will enact these frameworks and work in collaboration with local health services, including the Public Health Unit, to support the response.
We will continue to provide updates for COVID-19 developments in our region as more information comes to hand.