CIVIC HEALTH NEWS - FEBRUARY 2023

CIVIC NEWSLETTERS

Our Newsletters are well received by patients and other Health Care providers. If however you wish not to receive these emails and updates, please select the “Unsubscribe” button located at the bottom of this email to remove your email address from our mailer list. There are some valuable information shared on these updates and our aim is not to flood your inbox with unnecessary emails, but to keep you updated every once in a while as to what’s happening here at Civic.

Doctor Updates…

Dr Bonnie Zijsling – We welcome Bonnie to the Civic Team. Bonnie is working with us on the Wednesday and Friday morning and is a great addition to our team. Bonnie has an keen interest in skin lesions and ridding the world of skin cancer.

Dr Tomi Moore – Our thoughts and wishes are with Tomi as he’s finishing up in Wairoa and relocating to Blenheim to join Civic. He and his family are safe but their plans to leave Wairoa have been made a bit trickier. He is still on target to be with Civic from the beginning of April.

Dr Henry McKee – Henry is leaving us in April to return to the UK for a couple of months. We are however lucky to have him come back and continue his journey with us in August. We wish him safe travels and look forward to having him back later this year.

Did Not Attend

Did Not Attend (DNA) Appointments.

These are appointments that are not attended by patients. If you have an appointment with Civic and cannot attend, please let us know as soon as possible. Appointments are well sought after so a cancellation will be snapped up and it will give us an opportunity to help another patient.

If an appointment is not attended without any notification, the patient will still incur the consult charge.

Please consider other patients and their need for an appointment and let us know well before the appointment if you are cancelling.

Mask and Respiratory Clinics

Yes, we are still wearing masks and seeing respiratory patients outside the Practice in our front Consult room 10. We do not see this changing any time soon.

In the entire Covid battle, we can proudly say that no-one has caught Covid from inside our Practice – staff or patients. All Covid cases relating to Civic have been caught from outside sources.

We invested heavily in the start with good ventilation and HEPA Air filters and we have endured wearing masks all day, every day to keep our team and our patients safe.

Masks are still a government requirement in all Health Facilities and that includes Civic and as we have seen the benefit of them, we will continue to adhere to rules.

We are happy to make arrangements if you are unable to wear a mask to keep everyone safe, just let us know and we will help.

Wheelchair Available

Our practice is a wheelchair friendly environment. If any patient requires a wheelchair when coming into the practice, please let the reception staff know. We have one available for use in the practice and will happily get it to help patients come in and see the clinician.

Payment of accounts

Our Terms and Conditions are part of our agreement with you, when enrolling with us. Payment is expected at the time of a consult or the provision of a prescription or other service.

We understand that times are tough and we are more than happy to talk to you to make arrangements for paying. If you are eligible for a Community Services Card, please ensure you apply. This reduces the cost of a consult considerably.

Chris, our Health Coach is happy to talk to patients who need help to access Work & Income and/or Budget advice to help move forward. All we ask is that you talk to us, let us know what is happening for you and try and work out a way we can help.

Covid in the Community Funding

The Ministry of Health has now ceased a lot of the availability for funding for dealing with Covid in our Community. This funding has allowed us to see patients with respiratory symptoms, potentially Covid, and not have to charge the patient. The additional funding has also enabled us to rent and equip our Cabin, and now the front consult room and ensure our ventilation and filters are all in place to protect those inside the Practice.

While we have been grateful for this funding, we will not be able to contact all Covid cases and will rely on the Ministry of Health to send text messages with information.

If you have Covid and are very unwell, we are able to make some claim of funding to help you for free. The Ministry of Health is relying on patients to contact us if needing help.

We will need to charge for all respiratory consults that are not Covid.

We are still here for you and please, if any patient has Covid and is concerned, give us a call.

Ear Suctioning

Civic has recognized the need for this service and we have invested in the equipment and the training for some of our nurses.

Ear Suctioning clinics have been made available to book into with the nurses. Please call and ask about it today.

Costs - $60 for one ear, $80 for two ears, $30 for any follow up needed.

Non-Clinical Triage and seeing the right Health Care Provider

Civic staff (clinical and non-clinical) have recently put heads together to brainstorm ideas for how we can better serve the needs of our patients. We are fortunate to have a variety of Health Care providers with different skillsets and specialties and utilizing those skillsets are highly advantageous for patients as well as clinicians who are able to offer their services to patients. Having this variety also provides the option for patients to access the care that they need sooner.

Our administration staff have been working with our clinical team learning and training to better deal and direct patients to various providers to get them the help they need sooner.

When phoning the practice, our administration team will ask various questions to better understand what’s going on for the patient or the reason for needing an appointment. Our administration team are not clinicians and cannot offer any clinical advice. They are, however, able to ask questions to better understand the patients situation and to ensure they can direct them to the correct provider in a timely manner. Patients can rest assured that all Civic staff are bound by the Privacy Act and any information disclosed to our team remains highly confidential.

We’ve created a signpost for patients to refer to with our various providers and what ailments they are able to treat. We are aware of the long wait to see a GP and therefore worked with our team to provide suitable alternative options of care for our patients.

PracticePlus

How it works

PracticePlus is an afterhours telehealth GP service. It’s been developed between Tū Ora, Pinnacle, Think Hauora and Te Awakairangi Primary Health Organisations to increase access options for primary care. They’ve developed a same day, after hours service in partnership with their Clinician network to secure a continuity of care between a virtual Clinician service and a patient’s regular Clinician team.

With Practice Plus, you’re only a few clicks away from a same day after-hours virtual Clinician consultation that suits you. They help tautoko (connect) you with trusted medical care quickly, as an after-hours extension to your regular medical centre team and Clinician.
Practice Plus is available weekdays 5pm-10pm and weekends/public holidays 8am-8pm

Book an appointment

THANK YOU FOR YOUR KINDNESS

We want to take the opportunity to thank the patients that are so kind to our team. We really value the time people take to say how much they appreciate our team. It really does make our days a lot brighter.