Health
30th April, 2020COVID-19: Brisbane medical centre offers drive-through treatment
Carina Medical and Specialist Centre is among the first in the region to offer drive-through treatment for patients concerned about the coronavirus.
If you missed today’s news story, from Monday this week for the safety of our patients and the community we’ve opened up our car park for drive through car park consults to help patients who need medical help.
Thank you Courier Mail for sharing this story and the incredible work of all of our Doctors at our practice. We are so grateful to you because it means that we are able to potentially help more people safely who may need to see a Doctor.
Thank you Courier Mail for sharing this story and the incredible work of all of our Doctors at our practice
This article first appeared in the Courier Mail.
Carina Medical and Specialist Centre opened its carpark up to consultations on Monday, with the practice seeing a couple of hundred of patients with flu-like symptoms arriving from all over Brisbane desperate to be seen.
People can visit the clinic, which has its main doors locked to prevent potential confirmed cases infecting the rest of the office, where they will be screened by reception via telephone at the door.
Nurse Victoria Rose, Dr Phillip Wuth and Dr. Rhys Dallimore treat a patient in the car park. Picture: Nigel Hallett
If the person meets the criteria, they are asked to return to their car, which is separated by markers from other patients in the carpark, where a doctor will leave the office and treat them wearing masks, gloves and scrubs.
The centre does not test for COVID-19 however is aiming to ease the pressure on the emergency system by filtering out other concerned cases such as those with tonsillitis.
“Over the weekend we decided to keep us and more importantly our patients safe, so we’re isolating those patients with respiratory symptoms to keep them outside so we can see them outside safely and people who aren’t sick can come in and we can continue to see them without them being worried about the person next to them giving it to them,” Dr Phillip Wuth said.
“But if they’ve got respiratory symptoms, we send them back out to their car and reception take a note of what car they’re in and then a doctor will get all their gear on and go outside and check them and do what we need to do.
“Those are people that now don’t have to turn up to emergency departments so we’re trying to take the pressure off those guys because they’re doing what they’re doing with the high-risk people.”