Screening for Aortic Aneurysms

Did you know, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the United States of America, and Canada all offer one-off screening ultrasound scans to detect abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) in men aged 65 years? Although our cardiologists believe New Zealand should be offering our residents this test also, we currently have no government funded AAA screening program.

COVID 19 Update 1st April 2020

NOTICE - as we are currently experiencing very low demand for services with everyone locked down, we will be closing earlier than usual, at 17.00, rather than 17.30.We will open at our usual time once the level 4 state ends.We will also be giving some of our clinical staff extra time off to rest so that we can be fresh to treat you when the need arises.  This means your usual doctor may not be working their normal hours.Cases of COVID-19 continue to be very uncommon in Canterbury though, which is great news.Nonetheless, it is vitally important to keep your distance and wash your hands.Every

Keeping You in the Loop

Coronavirus update 23 March 2020

This is an unusual news post as it is both a news post and guidance for our staff.

It is being put here so that everyone knows what is going on and why, and also how to provide feedback - all ideas are very welcome in these trying times.

Through all of this our purpose is to ensure that you spend as little time in our waiting room, possibly being exposed to others as possible, to protect our staff without whom we cannot make this work, and to do our best to deliver the highest quality healthcare we can, circumstances be damned.

Read on to see how your team is going to be managing things in the coming days to weeks:

Flu and Coronavirus 1st March 2020

image of needle and phial illustrating an article about influenza vaccine and coronavirus

 

As we hear of the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus, covid-19 in New Zealand, we are receiving more and more enquiries about both this and the 'flu vaccine.

The 'Flu vaccine will not be available until 1st April this year.  We will be letting you know as soon as it comes into stock.  Having the whole family, especially children immunised is the best way to stop influenza spreading in our community.  Although the 'Flu vaccine provides NO protection against Covid-19, it does reduce the risk of getting sick and this will help both to ease worries over what may be a stressful period and of course the more people who are immunised, the fewer sick people will need to be managed in hospital, freeing resources in case there are large numbers of coronavirus cases.

Despite what you might hear in the media, this is NOT the zombie apocalypse and we are NOT all going to die.

The Rub with Fixed Fees

Lego doctor image

Anyone paying the slightest attention to either of the last two General Elections could not fail to notice that the cost of visiting the GP was a key policy issue for pretty much every political party.  Each tried to outbid the other in offering lower costs, but is that actually A Good Thing?

 

Did You Know...

image of blue asthma inhalerWe occasionally get asked if the alcohol in asthma inhalers can affect driving.  The answer is a resounding no.

A ripe banana contains five times more alcohol than even the most alcoholic inhaler available today - you would have to use 10 full inhalers to get the equivalent of one standard drink, so the alcohol cannot put you 'over the limit'

If you are wheezy enough to need to use an inhaler though, you should wait until the medication has worked before you drive anyway, so there is no chance any alcohol from the inhaler would be detected at a roadside check.

 

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