What a turbulent year 2020 has turned out to be. With the world gripped by the coronavirus pandemic and the latest COVID stats and government restrictions dominating news platforms, it’s easy to become more concerned about the potential of community transmission than it is to address chronic health issues or concerns about your wellness.

However, now is the right time to make sure your health is being properly monitored and managed.

Here at Drayton Street Family Practice, we fully understand patients’ reluctance to book appointments during this unusual time. But we also want our patients to understand that we offer COVID-Safe appointments.

Our staff urge all patients, particularly those with chronic health problems, to keep regular appointments so we can effectively manage your health issues.

Whether you have been diagnosed with hypertension, diabetes or heart problems — it’s extremely important to keep up your regular schedule of GP visits, so we can thoroughly examine you and ensure your health care plan is up-to-date.

To keep our staff and our patients safe during the pandemic, a COVID-Safe environment has been strictly implemented for face-to-face appointments. However, we also offer the convenience of phone consultations in certain situations where a face-to-face is not required or possible.

Have you had your flu shot yet? We also encourage our patients to visit our Flu Clinic so we can administer a flu vaccination. These are free for patients 5 years and under, existing patients over 65 and those under 65 who have a chronic medical condition.

Catching the flu while you have COVID increases the chance of serious health issues, and we urge all interested patients to get in touch with our staff to book their appointment at our Tuesday and Thursday Flu Clinic.

To ensure we maintain our COVID-Safe environment, we ask our patients to let our reception staff know if you are showing signs of fever, coughing, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties, runny nose or sore throat — before you book your appointment. This is so our staff can assess the situation before you enter our medical centre and determine a course of action for your appointment.

We also request that patients respect social distancing requirements while they are visiting us, and that hand sanitiser is applied before and after your appointment.

If you are concerned about your general health or you suffer from chronic health issues, call Drayton Street Family Practice on 07 4171 0711 to organise your next face-to-face appointment. We are a bulk billing practice and are dedicated to serving our community throughout COVID and beyond.