COVID-19 Update June 2020

We’re feeling a little more freedom with the loosening of COVID-19 restrictions, it’s like seeing the end in sight. There are still plenty of good advice coming from the Chief and Deputy Medical officers around staying safe as these restrictions shift, the key messages are:

• Wash your hands regularly
• Continue to social distance (stay 1.5m away)
• Download the COVID-safe app.

 
Welcoming Partners
We are keen to welcome partners back into patient appointments and will be doing this from today. To begin with we would like to invite partners to your first appointment and then on a case by case scenario from there. Our main concern is that we are able to continue to not exceed the maximum number of patients in our waiting room, if you plan to have your partner with you at your appointment please let us know ahead of time. We also ask that if your partner is attending that you call when you arrive in the car park so that we can guide you on when to enter our waiting room. As always please only attend if you are well. We will continue to screen patient’s (and their partners) the day before appointments with our Covid-19 questions, some of you know these off by heart!
 
Newcastle Private Hospital Visitors
Great news, maternity patient’s at Newcastle Private Hospital can now nominate a second visitor to visit during their maternity stay. More information is provided on the  Visitors Information Sheet provided by NPH. These rules are sure to change again in the future so are most relevant to ladies due to deliver in the next 1-2 months.
 
Antenatal Classes
Face-to-face antenatal classes are sure to resume soon and we will pass on this information when it is available, in the mean-time continue to take advantage of the two great online services provided by midwives Karen Scanlon (Embrace Birthing) and Edwina (Birth Beat), here are the links for easy access:
 
Embrace Birthing    www.embracebirthing.com.au
 
Birth Beat                 www.birthbeat.com
 
 
Healthscope and your health fund
You may have heard that Healthscope (Newcastle Private Hospital) and some major health funds have not been able to agree on the terms of cover at Healthscope hospitals. They are still in negotiations and we are hopeful that they will still be able to come to an agreement.
If you are in any of the negotiating health funds they may have contacted you directly with information, if not you will need to contact them directly to find out how these changes will affect you. Each fund has a different date for when their current agreement ends and we are encouraging all our patients to submit their admission forms online before the end date.
The funds involved and their contract end dates are:

• Teachers Health Fund                                Sunday, 7 June 2020
• Australian Unity                                          Sunday, 14 June 2020
• CUA Health Limited                                   Wednesday, 17 June 2020
• Reserve Bank Health Society Limited     Wednesday, 17 June 2020
• CBHS Corporate Health Pty Ltd               Wednesday, 17 June 2020
• CBHS Health Fund Limited                        Wednesday, 17 June 2020

 
If Healthscope is unable to reach an agreement with these health funds, bookings received after these dates may incur additional out-of-pocket costs. If you are yet to have your first appointment with Dr Holland and would like to organise bookings ahead of these close dates contact us.
 
Previous emails
A full version of our previous emails will be put onto our website for catch up and to refer to, here is a link to access that https://www.drmatthewholland.com.au/covid-19-blog
 
Grey Skies Are Going to Clear Up
It’s coming into winter so technically grey skies are with us for a moment but life is looking better every day and you all have babies on the way to brighten our world, it’s not so bad after all.
 
See you all soon, we’re always here to help so reach out if you need us.