COVID-19 clinic opens

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Nexus Primary Health began operating Mitchell Shire’s first GP-led respiratory clinic yesterday as part of the Federal Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new clinic at Nexus GP SuperClinic in Wallan will assess, test and diagnose mild to moderate respiratory conditions including COVID-19, pneumonia and the flu.

The clinic will see patients who present any of the following symptoms – fever, dry cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, or shortness of breath – or have been overseas in the past two weeks or had direct contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19.

Nexus Primary Health integration and connections manager Laura Colliver said the clinic was separate from the rest of Nexus’ services.

“We can see clients from anywhere and then we feed back to their clinic with their results,” she said.

The new clinic marks a big step up in testing in Mitchell Shire and the surrounding area.
Ms Colliver said Nexus had conducted 250 COVID-19 tests since the outbreak began.

“There have been some clinics but it’s hard to get resources like Personal Protective Equipment so doing this with the Australian Government, we’ll be able to get PPE and continue to do it on behalf of everyone,” she said.

“We’ve been testing since day one and a lot of the local clinics have been referring to us for testing anyway.

“We’ll start with one GP but we have the capacity to do up to 120 tests per day.
“It’s available to everyone so it’s not like cheating on your doctor and we’ll feed the results to your doctor at the end of it.”