As things currently stand, positive rapid antigen test results are not being recorded or counted as part of the official case numbers as there is no formal notification process. Patients contacting their GP with a positive rapid antigen test result does not equate to the health system having an aggregate view of the number of positive cases in the community.
General practices simply do not have the administrative capacity to officially lodge all COVID-19 cases, so we need governments to step up and set up a system so that all cases are recorded and everyone has access to Covid-19-positive care pathways.
There needs to be a triage system designed to assist many thousands of people across Australia because GPs can only shoulder the burden of so much responsibility and we certainly can’t manage this process on our own. We are ready to work with government as needed to resolve this issue and ensure there is a system that works for general practice and their patients.
General practice teams are exhausted, and we need to ensure that any Government-initiated changes to managing patients in the pandemic have undergone careful planning so that general practice teams can immediately adapt. When general practice teams learn information via a press conference or, even worse, from their patients – it does make our vital role in the vaccine rollout much more difficult.
