Thread by @DrTammraWarby

1/5 how to be a GP in a pandemic; a thread . 1. recognise there is a dangerous bug that could kill you, your family and your patients. Pivot rapidly to Telehealth and be forced to bulk bill #telehealth #covid19 #auspol #GetVaccinatedNow

2/5 spend your days trying to calm down your patients and your nights doing 3-4 hours of education to make sure you know what to do next, learn about covid & every update there is. Wear scrubs in case you give it to anyone at home . Sanitise at every possible work point you have.

3/5 set up systems to triage,&safely see or direct pts with symptoms of covid for testing and care, train your staff, in order to keep your practice going, your staff and patients safe and try not to miss all the other stuff that people could have.

4/5 start a vaccine rollout. Deal with every red tape imaginable like booking system nightmares, pts ringing day & night, figuring out who is eligible, being paid less than it costs to roll it out, & try convince everyone to get it even though there’s “no covid in Australia’

5/5 the government decides we will all live with covid & you can see all covid+ pts in person for $25. Never mind you have tried very hard to keep everyone safe, get all your normal patient care done, & roll out the vaccine…but now you can deal with this because you’re #justaGP

6/ And don’t forget in the mess and confusion of the initial rollout - the majority of GPs were not considered “frontline” workers , even though everyday they were seeing pts with potential symptoms of Covid. Everyday we woke to some new govt announcement we had to refute