Bendigo Advertiser, December 29 2022: Bendigo Health’s COVID-screening clinic has probably carried out close to a million tests over its three years of operation, nurse unit manager Veronica Steegs thinks, although it is impossible to know for certain.
Staff have carried out 624,000 tests since January 2021 but due to a change of systems, data for the first, urgent wave of the pandemic has been lost.
In those early days, “we didn’t know a lot about what the coronavirus was and what exposure was going to mean,” associate nurse unit manager Michelle McGibbon says.
Nevertheless the health workers kitted up and went out on the front line to meet the challenge not just at home in Bendigo but in outreach teams around the region.
“Travelling to Mildura in 40-degree heat and arriving to see hundreds of cars waiting, you knew it was going to be a tough day,” Ms McGibbon says.
But staff had faith in each other and the system, they say.
“We were working it out together, which forged a bond between us,” administrative support Meg Trantor says.
“We were all very close, we had a fantastic team, and we’ve had a lot of support from management.”
As the pandemic, and understanding of it, progressed, the health service response moved through different phases.
The Public Health Unit (PHU) was formed in August 2020, and from March 1 last year started vaccinating people, with Ms Steegs among the first to receive the jab.
Since then the PHU has vaccinated about 265,000 people at various locations, including 360 outreach clinics “across prisons, farms, places of worship and aged care facilities”.
It has also managed hundreds of exposure sites and outbreaks in the Greater Bendigo, Mount Alexander, Macedon Ranges, Campaspe and Gannawarra shires.
As more staff were required, non-medical workers from the service stepped in, students were mobilised and retired staff returned to assist.
“We were a team,” Ms Steegs says. “We had students, retirees, ambulance paramedics, allied staff, ENs and registered nurses.
“Right at the start we also worked with Defence.”
With funding for it ceasing at the end of the year, the clinic is closing on Saturday, something Ms Steegs describes as “a bit of an end of an era”.
“But it has been winding down anyway and we’re looking forward to what we’re moving into,” she says.
“You do reminisce about the time you had thousands of people coming through, and we were going out to the regions.”
One standout memory for the team was the vaccination of 1700 people in a single day.
“We had the drive-through at the showgrounds and the walk-in clinic in Mollison St,” Ms Steegs says.
“At the showgrounds we had six lanes going. The line-up of cars was wrapped three times around the ground before they entered the shed.
“It was 40 degrees in the shade.”
The extremes of cold and heat at outdoor locations were made much worse by the PPE staff were wearing.
“We couldn’t touch anything when we were in full PPE, even to have a drink,” Ms Steegs says.
“We wore icepacks under our armpits and had bucket hats. And we rotated every 45 minutes when we were wearing it.”
For the most part the public was very appreciative of the health workers’ efforts.
“The majority of people were absolutely fantastic and so appreciative,” the clinic boss says.
“The community really supported us.
“And we’re extremely proud of what we’ve achieved.”
“It’s something I can tell my kids when I have them,” Ms Trantor says. “That I worked through a pandemic.”
Jenny Denton 
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