Gaylene Hastie was at the heart of the first Covid-19 outbreak in Queenstown, and now the Queenstown Medical Centre nurse practitioner is in the eye of the storm again.
"Outbreak one, we had to fly by the seat of our pants because it came so rapidly and changed so quickly and we didn’t really have any time to prepare," she said.
"We were also completely in lockdown, which for us in primary care stalled a lot of our business as usual."
It also meant that clinicians like Ms Hastie, and their patients, had to rapidly learn how to use telehealth systems — something which has stood them in good stead for the second Covid-19 outbreak, where primary health workers are largely caring for their Covid patients remotely.
"Things that we thought were years away happened overnight and that meant we were sort of future-proofed for what was to come," Ms Hastie said.
Whereas in the first outbreak Covid patients were treated in tents to keep them separate from other patients, now the medical centre has a dedicated building purely for Covid-19 patients who need to be seen in person.
Each clinician, including Ms Hastie, take turns doing in-person Covid-19 consultations, and the rest of their week is spent on the phone or on Zoom calls monitoring the wellbeing of Covid patients recovering at home, and referring anyone who needs it for more intensive medical attention.
Each clinician’s call sheet can comprise 50 or more patients: her biggest day has been 90 patients.
"Having systems in place now is the biggest difference from before," Ms Hastie said.
"For example, getting a patient admitted is now a really efficient process whereas back then there were a lot of unknowns and I guess a lot of people were scared and anxious about it.
"We have had time to get our heads around Covid and make preparations for it."
In 2020 Covid struck first and hardest in Queenstown and Wanaka, and two years later the Lakes region was again the first to feel the brunt of Omicron, quickly racking up a hundred or more cases a day.
"It’s been bloody hard work but we’ve pulled together as a team," Ms Hastie said.
"We are having a huge wave of kids under five at the moment who have got Omicron and so we are having to check in with all of them, sometimes each day, until they get through, and it’s not just about their clinical care, we are worried about the family’s overall welfare as well."
In normal times general practice was all about ensuring the community kept well, but the role felt more important than ever during a pandemic, Ms Hastie said.
"There is the greater effort required for Covid, which includes being an information provider because when you ring people they have a lot of questions around Omicron, but then you also have to deal with all of the stuff that we usually deal with anyway, all our usual medical care.
"Just because Omicron has come along, it doesn't mean that all those other health needs switch off."
