It's not all doom and gloom however, with the Murrumbidgee Local Health District taking a no-risk approach to any potential health workers being bought in from Greater Sydney, surrounding areas of current concern and interstate.

According to Tracey Oakman, Director of Public Health for MLHD this no-risk approach, is vital to protecting Murrumbidgee communities and patients needing care.

"One of the real challenges that rural health services face is attracting medical professionals and specialists to work full time in the region, which means that we need to frequently obtain locum doctors from around the country," Mrs Oakman said.

"Over the past year, and as cases remain high in Greater Sydney, we have employed the use of thorough risk assessments for an individuals travelling to a regional hospital for essential work, no matter where they have been."

READ MORE

This process sees a panel of experts analyse a potential locum doctors activity, where they have been, who they have been with and their subsequent level of risk.

"The MLHD monitors and follows the public health advice and has rigorous processes in place to ensure that anyone travelling into our region to perform essential health care work undergoes a stringent screening process to reduce risk and help keep people safe," MLHD's COVID-19 co-ordinator Carla Bailey said.

This however needs to be balanced with still ensuring that patients in need, still receive the support and care they are entitled to.

"We are committed to mitigating these risks by ensuring that locums who are travelling from a lockdown area, but have not been a close contact or exposed to COVID-19 still take relevant precautionary measures such as wearing full PPE when working in a health setting," Mrs Oakman said.

"We do not want someone to miss out on and die because we are unable to supply these essential services to regional communities as whilst we can minimise the risks involved with locum workers, you can never eliminate it completely."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: