My nutshell experience trying to get tested for Corona Virus while in 14 day quarantine in Dubbo, a regional hub / city of about 46,000 people.
On Day 5 of quarantine I get a sore throat and a little hoarse but otherwise feel perfectly fine, so taking note of the “awesome and amazing” Government Covid-19 App, I contact my local GP in a local Medical Centre here in Dubbo and make a TeleHealth conference appointment. I get assigned a random Dr I’ve never visited before but has my Health Record in front of him. We go through my symptoms and he verifies my Health history and contact details.
OK. All good. Looks like I’m “High Risk” and need to be swabbed.
What followed was basically a stressful and alarming circle jerk from Dubbo medicos that had them 1) tell me to mask up and break quarantine to be tested (as I was “High Risk”), walk down to a 5pm appointment at a Medical Centre and meet the Dr outside which (after pacing nervously on the footpath outside the Centre for 20 minutes) I discovered was 2) the wrong medical centre (he was in another suburb kilometres away) and then have the Dr call me back – aggressive and irate – 20 minutes later and 3) grill me about why I was there and then refuse to deal with me because he thought I was a woman (!!!) on the phone and 4) tell me that I’d have to find another Dr to swab me as he (the Dr) was going home then 5) wished me luck and hung up in my ear. Incredibly angry and cursing like a sailor I stomped back to the Motel only to then 6) get a call from his Supervisor three hours later at 8pm (he is a trainee Dr) telling me that he shouldn’t have done what he did and 7) they couldn’t test me at the medical centre anyway and so couldn’t help me but that 8) I had to call the government hotline number who would arrange for testing but 9) when I ring the Hotline find that they are just a Call Centre and 10) have the lady tell me that my symptoms weren’t severe enough to be tested and call them when they got worse and 11) that they didn’t arrange for testing anyway and 12) I’d have to go up to the Dubbo Base Hospital Drive-In Clinic which 13) I couldn’t as I don’t have a car and I cant catch a taxi or put anyone at risk so I’m 14) fucked.
Luckily this came to nothing and the sore throat must have simply been a result of spending 10 days in the bushfire smoke and shitty air quality levels of Chiang Mai in March.
That is all.
Quarantine continues symptom free since day 5.
*Useless unless you are in a major city.
Man Down! 