A new clinic has opened for West Australians experiencing long-COVID, as WA’s State of Emergency ends.
WA Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson launched the long-COVID clinic on 31 October 2022, revealing that the pilot program has been located at Bentley Health Service and will be available to people living in the East Metropolitan Health Service catchment area, who meet the criteria, with attendance by GP referral.
The pilot program is for people who are:
- over 16 years of age
- have had a COVID diagnosis that has been confirmed by a RAT or PCR test
- are at least 12 weeks post diagnosis
- are experiencing significant, ongoing but non-urgent symptoms; and
- have objective physical findings which have failed to resolve with primary care and that cannot be attributed to other obvious causes or cognitive/psychological issues
The clinic will offer patients further assessment and management of their symptoms and will be trialled for six months.
“The trial clinic will be led by a senior physiotherapist who will see patients over 16 years of age who are experiencing ongoing symptoms more than 12 weeks after being diagnosed with COVID,” Minister Sanderson said.
“We continue to monitor long-COVID in the community and other clinics may be established in future – if needed – and should the trial prove successful.”
The clinic’s launch coincided with the eagerly awaited declaration by Premier Mark McGowan that after 963 days, WA’s State of Emergency will end on 4 November 2022, with the Premier confirming that The Public Health State of Emergency, enacted under the Public Health Act 2016, will also be revoked.
“The end of the State of Emergency and Public Health State of Emergency marks a significant milestone in the management of the pandemic and I thank all Western Australians for their efforts, patience and co-operation,” Mr McGowan said.
“However, COVID remains in the community and the best way we can all help manage it is by following the most basic but vital public health advice like staying home when you’re unwell, wearing a mask as you need, getting tested and keeping up normal hygiene practices.”
Minister Sanderson thanked healthcare workers for their valiant efforts throughout the pandemic in managing WA’s outbreaks and highlighted the need for continued vigilance.
“Our incredible outcomes would not have been possible without the work of those on our healthcare frontlines, as well as the people working behind-the-scenes at the Department of Health, and without the co-operation and faith of the people of Western Australia,” Minister Sanderson said.
“It is important we continue to protect the most vulnerable people in our community which is why we are retaining sensible and appropriate measures at high-risk settings such as hospitals.”
At the time of writing (3 November 2022), there were 140 West Australians hospitalised by COVID, with eight in ICU.
Mr McGowan said that the state government will continue to manage COVID through “appropriate policy settings, the WA Free RAT program and maintaining systems and procedures that allow for the swift re-establishment of testing and vaccination clinics if required.”
In preparation for the transition away from the State of Emergency, State Parliament passed the highly controversial Emergency Management Amendment (Temporary COVID-19 Provisions) Bill 2022 this month, which provides a framework for WA to safely manage COVID in the future, ‘should the virus escalate and require additional levers to protect the WA community’.
Under the new framework, if required, the State Emergency Coordinator can make a ‘Temporary COVID-19 Declaration’, if COVID once again poses a risk to the safety of the community and requires a co-ordinated response to prevent loss of life or harm to the health of the community.
Similarly, if required, the framework can be used to implement measures such as mask wearing on public transport and in other settings, isolation requirements for individuals, enhanced cruise ship protocols and prohibitions to remote Aboriginal communities.
In other COVID news, The Department of Health has asked West Australians to participate in a survey exploring the impacts of long-COVID, where people who had previously been diagnosed with COVID – and agreed to participate in future research – will be contacted by the Department via SMS.
Senior Medical Adviser for Communicable Disease Control Dr Paul Effler said the study would help shape what resources and future health care needs WA would require for long-COVID.
“WA’s high vaccination rate when we were hit by the Omicron variant means information about long-COVID from other countries with lower vaccination rates, and which experienced different variant waves, is not likely to be applicable to us,” Dr Effler said.
“We are encouraging anyone who receives the survey request to respond, as it will help us identify risk factors for developing long COVID and estimate the proportion of people in WA still experiencing symptoms after their initial illness.
“Even if you quickly recovered from your COVID illness and don’t have symptoms of long-COVID now, we still want to hear from you: comparing answers from people who developed long-COVID to those who did not helps us gain a better understanding of the risk factors and potential causes.”