Covid testing for Q'town tourism workers

From Well South and the SDHB.

Queenstown Medical Centre, WellSouth primary health network, and Southern DHB are working together to provide free COVID-19 drop-in testing clinics in central Queenstown next week.

Queenstown COVID-19 Testing Clinics
Village Green
Camp Street
Monday 14 to Thursday 17 September
8am to 6pm

The clinics are aimed at improving access to testing for people working in the hospitality, tourism and service sectors. This includes restaurant and bar staff, cleaning staff, as well as taxi/uber and bus drivers, airport workers and others who may have had contact with people traveling from outside the South Island.

These are walk-in clinics - no appointment is needed – and testing is for people with or without symptoms.

“We want to help ensure that COVID swabbing is convenient and accessible to workers in the Queenstown area,” says Southern DHB Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Susan Jack. “If COVID-19 has made its way to our community, we can find it and stamp it out quickly.

The clinics are part of continued surveillance testing taking place across the Southern district and around the country.

WellSouth has delivered more than 20 pop-up surveillance testing events in the Southern region in the past six months. In some instances there’ve been a few dozen tests while in others more than 1000 swabs were taken. In recent weeks there has been pop up testing in Gore (04 Sept), Balclutha (10 Sept) and Oamaru (12 Sept).

“We’ve twice conducted surveillance testing in Frankton – once in April and again in August – and the Queenstown Lakes community have been tremendously supportive and eager to help,” says Andrew Swanson Dobbs, CEO WellSouth. “I’m sure we will again have a good  turn out from service and hospitality workers taking this opportunity for free, easy-to-access COVID-19 testing.”

Ashley Light, Queenstown Medical Centre CEO, says he expects Queenstown workers will take advantage of the free testing.

“The health and well-being of our population is a priority and getting a large number of workers tested will send a strong message of confidence to the rest of the country,” he says.

About COVID-19 Testing

• Testing is free – regardless of citizenship or visa status
• Information is not shared for enforcement or any other purposes
• You do not need to self-isolate after a test
• You do not need to be enrolled with a general practice
• You can be tested whether or not you have any cold-like symptoms  (If you have symptoms, you should stay home until you are symptom free, as you would with any illness.)
• Results are usually available in 48 hours  to 72 hours.