Taranaki DHB in full response mode to latest COVID-19 cases

15 January 2021

Taranaki DHB’s Incident Management Team is in response mode as a result of the latest COVID-19 cases identified in Auckland.

A list of Taranaki locations of interest that were visited by two positive cases from the Auckland region over Waitangi weekend has sparked an influx of people accessing testing in New Plymouth, Hawera, Waitara and Opunake.

Taranaki DHB’s Incident Management Team controller Becky Jenkins says more than120 people had accessed the Base Hospital testing centre so far today, and testing is also busy but steady across other testing sites in the region.

“It’s great to see the local community being so responsive and getting tested for symptoms or because they’re linked with the locations of interest. These are the priority people we want to see.

“We’ve up-scaled our testing staff to cope with the volume of people wanting to be tested and we have a traffic management system fully in place to assist with people accessing Base Hospital’s testing clinic.

“Wait times so far today have been around 1-2 hours long and we ask people to be patient whilst they wait for a test.”

Taranaki DHB’s Public Health Unit has confirmed that contact tracing is underway and all the local businesses who are listed as locations of interest have been contacted, and testing of several employees from these businesses has been carried out.

Ms Jenkins explains “All of these local businesses have been good to deal with, very cooperative and providing excellent communication to their staff”.

Taranaki is living and working at Alert Level 2, including hospital and community health services. Ms Jenkins says its business as usual and people should be able to access their appointments as normal.

“We ask everyone to remember Level 2 protocols around health hygiene, social distancing where possible and re-scheduling your health appointments if you’re unwell.”

Taranaki Base and Hawera hospital’s visitor policy remains unchanged, however people are asked to use the QR codes for tracing purposes when entering.

 

 

Last updated: Monday, February 15, 2021