Request for help in cyclone-affected areas
We have primary care team members who have had their own homes affected. We have a Practice Manager who lives in a severely affected area with only boat transport out, and no connectivity. Many of our primary health team members are volunteering in the evenings and weekends to help their own neighbours to shovel silt, remove rotting fruit and vegetables and help in other ways, and then go back to work the next day.
Te Whatu Ora is centrally coordinating a primary and community workforce response, with particular focus on general practice and pharmacy. They are matching requests for locum support with available volunteers and locums from other parts of the country, which a locum agency is coordinating.
We urgently need more locums in the next 2-4 weeks to support these colleagues. In Hawkes Bay alone we have requests over the next four weeks for 10 GPs, 6 Registered Nurses, 4 Reception staff and 1 Practice Manager. Our Te Aka Whai Ora colleagues also need culturally appropriate Medical and Nursing support for affected whānau. They are providing mobile support in some of the worst affected communities.