Doctors defy ‘bureaucratic’ Covid test restrictions

Doctors are ignoring Victorian health department advice not to test family members or work colleagues of people with COVID-19 unless they have symptoms.

Australian Medical Association Victoria Council chair Mukesh Haikerwal. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Doctors are ignoring Victorian health department advice not to test family members or work colleagues of people with COVID-19 unless they have symptoms or a letter from the Department of Health and Human Services confirming them as a close contact.

One of the state‘s most eminent GPs, Australian Medical Association Victoria Council chair Mukesh Haikerwal, accused the department of prioritising bureaucracy over health, saying he had been disregarding the edict.

Dr Haikerwal’s criticism comes as DHHS contact tracers fail to keep up with a massive caseload, which includes more than 2500 coronavirus cases that have been under investigation for more than 48 hours, of which almost 900 have been under investigation for more than a week.

The delays have resulted in some people waiting longer than the 14-day quarantine period for the department to officially confirm them as close contacts, with some not knowing they were close contacts and should quarantine until they received the call.

Dr Haikerwal, who runs a GP clinic in Melbourne’s west, said DHHS’s testing and tracing protocol “just doesn’t cut it”, with 4775 active cases in Victoria as of Tuesday, and he was ignoring the department’s advice and testing close contacts regardless of whether they had a letter.

“We’re taking a clinical view on this, not a bureaucratic view on this,” the former federal and state AMA president said.

“You have a large number of cases and you have a long delay getting through to report positive cases when you have them.

“DHHS contact tracers are lovely people when you do get through to them, but they’re way behind.

“We are now in our practice seeing people who’ve got COVID diagnosed, and we reach out to their families and their direct contacts, and in fact they’re coming to us saying ‘we’re direct contacts’, and therefore they should be ­tested.

“There’s no doubt that they should be tested, and there are delays getting the DHHS letter, which is deemed to be necessary.

 

“My set-up is funded by the federal government Department of Health so I’m not beholden to DHHS, but my terms of engagement are we’re only supposed to test people who are symptomatic or have a DHHS letter.

“We are in a Catch-22. We take a clinical view, and the clinical decision based on clinical grounds is that direct contacts of actual cases need to be tested.”

The DHHS eligibility criteria for testing states that “people with letters from their employer, school or community group advising them to get tested” are “not eligible” for asymptomatic testing.

Those identified as close contacts of a positive case require a DHHS letter or text message.

Asked why this was the case, Victorian chief health officer Brett Sutton said: “Close contacts don’t need testing necessarily.”

“Close contacts are people who’ve been potentially exposed to the virus. What they mainly need to do is to do their 14 days of quarantine,” Professor Sutton said.

“They don’t need to be tested unless they develop symptoms, and we would prompt them, if they’re known to us as close contacts, to get tested when they develop symptoms.

“Going without symptoms could be a false reassurance. When you’re in a quarantine period you can develop illness at any point in that 14 days.”

Professor Sutton also revealed on Tuesday that Victorians who are quarantining at home after testing positive for coronavirus are allowed to exercise in their local park, because of the state’s human rights charter.

The Victorian DHHS advises positive cases: “You are permitted to leave your property to exercise however (sic) you must keep a distance of 1.5 metres between yourself and any other people you encounter.”