Department’s debacle making lockdown harder

There is one logistical nightmare rendering our home-based incarceration doubly demoralising – and it shouldn’t be hard to fix.

“Thank you for calling. The call centre is experiencing extremely high call demand. Please call again and check the website.”

Click. The Department of Health coronavirus hotline goes dead.

Call back as many times as you like, and the same thing happens.

If you think you may have the virus, or if you’ve been at an exposure site, or need to know what to do as a primary contact, then this is what you get. A hang-up.

As I’ve discovered in the past few days, when you’re in the eye of the corona storm, all roads lead back to the Department of Health.

The main point of contact, information and advice – the coronavirus hotline – has been in meltdown for days now.

The Department of Health coronavirus hotline is ill-equipped to handle the number of calls.

It’s not a path out, it’s a dead end. There’s not even a call-back service, or the option of going on hold. The line just goes dead.

This is also the main number people are told to ring if they don’t have a place they can isolate safely, or need advice on symptoms or emergency groceries.

It’s not good enough, given that the state government had more than a year to prepare for another major outbreak like this one.

The fault is not the workers’; the problem lies with the system that has shown to be grossly ill-equipped to handle the number of calls.

It’s just as bad when you ring the communicable diseases line, which is the lifeline for those in isolation.

With a family member who was a primary contact at not just one but two exposure sites, there were many times we’ve needed crucial information and advice over the past six days.

We’ve rung dozens and dozens of times, only to have the system crash on us.

The home-based incarceration we’re enduring is rendered doubly demoralising by such avoidable logistical nightmares.

It shouldn’t be this bloody hard to get a phone call answered.

The fifth corona death in NSW in recent hours is a sober reminder of the importance of ensuring people get the help they need so they can make good decisions.

It shouldn’t be so damn hard to do the right thing – or even find out what the right thing is.

If the department doesn’t have a call centre that can take a high volume of calls, then it should stop giving out the number.

Good luck, too, in getting a Covid test in under four or five hours. There are many essential testing sites around the state that are closed to newcomers by 8.30am.

People who have symptoms, or who have been at exposure locations, are turning up to get tested, only to find site after site closed to new people, or lines of many, many hours.

New sites are opening up all the time, but we are not getting people tested fast enough.

This is why, in the seven days to Sunday, NSW conducted 445,000 tests but Victoria did 236,000.

When the site “Dude, Where’s My Covid Test?” is a better source of information than the Department of Health, you know there’s a real problem.

It took queues of several kilometres in Mildura for the department to set up a second testing site, this time for priority contacts only. Finally, they thought to separate out those potentially infected with Covid from people who have the sniffles.

There was a long wait at the pop-up drive through testing site in Mildura. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Darren Seiler

There’s no doubt the spike in demand is due in part to the greater use of QR codes and beefed-up contact tracing teams.

More people than last time are being identified as primary and secondary contacts, which is welcome.

But every new contact adds pressure onto the creaky system that is buckling under the weight of it all.

For instance, it took five days for the department to ring us after my family member was declared a primary contact.

Such calls are crucial because they track where people are staying and monitor the family members isolating with them. They are also a chance for contact tracers to gather essential information about the primary contact’s health and movements before isolation.

I should mention that on day three a DHHS staff member – backed up by someone from the army – knocked on our door to check we were home. We were so grateful to have someone who could finally answer our questions after failing to get through on the hotline for days and days.

But they didn’t have any authority or answers for us. Instead they handed us a brochure which told us to ring – you guessed it – the coronavirus hotline.

We’re happy to stay home and do our bit to keep everyone safe, but it shouldn’t be this bloody hard to get a phone call answered.