The Otago and Southland regions are doing well under COVID-19, according to Dr Stephen Graham, a GP and the Medical Director of WellSouth, a charitable trust funded by Southern District Health Board (SDHB) to provide primary health care services to this part of New Zealand.

COVID-19 pandemic has created a huge amount of work, both medical and organisational, for medical practitioners and Primary Health Organisations across New Zealand.

“We’ve never had anything like this before. There was the measles outbreak last year, we thought could get out of hand, but it was nothing like what we have now,” Dr Graham said. 

Right from the start, the College of GPs encouraged all medical practices and medical centres to limit physical contact with patients, instead using phone calls and video-conferencing.

Wellsouth was instrumental in setting up long-distance consultations via video link known as “telehealth” using free smartphone software called Doxy.me. As part of the Wellsouth team effort, Dr Graham has been busy setting up Community Based Assessment Centres (CBAC) in Invercargill, Queenstown and Dunedin. He has been out on the front line doing some of the COVID-19 swabs at the random testing stations focusing on the high risk groups, such as essential workers, overseas visitors or those in close proximity to the known significant coronavirus clusters. 

Recently the Wellsouth team was coordinating a team of 24 swabbers and support staff at Lorneville near Invercargill, testing asymptomatic meat workers for coronavirus. The week before they tested 247 backpackers in Queenstown. Fortunately all of these people tested negative. Wellsouth, in combination with Public Health South has gone on to set up up testing stations at three marae in Bluff, Invercargill and Karitane, as well as preparing for testing the Tongan community and another meat works in Oamaru.

The question is how did WellSouth come about and how did the ex-Te Anau GP end up being the medical mastermind for the southern regional healthcare?

WellSouth has its roots in the Labour government’s Primary Health Care Strategy released in February 2001 by the Minister of Health, Annette King, aiming to reduce inequalities in health service provision and to improve access to health services for those most in need. 

To achieve this, Primary Health Organisations (PHOs) were established to work with their local health providers to identify and address the specific primary health care needs of their local communities.

Subsequently the National Government set out to consolidate the PHOs and by mid-2011 their number of was reduced from 81 to just 41. As part of this restructuring the nine PHOs serving the Otago and Southland regions were disestablished and replaced with a single region-wide PHO. The result was the Southern Primary Health Organisation (now called WellSouth), which commenced in October 2010. By January 2011, all nine southern PHOs were under WellSouth umbrella.

Today WellSouth has the largest geographic region of any PHO in New Zealand.

Dr Graham was a partner at Fiordland Medical Centre between 1997 and 2017, before he and his wife (also a GP) moved to Dunedin.

He was a member of the Takitimu Health PHO (covering Fiordland, central and western Southland) before it was incorporated into WellSouth and joined the organisation in April 2017 from private general practice in Dunedin. He said he got involved, because he wanted to help the primary health care professionals.

As the Medical Director he is responsible for provision of clinical leadership and advice to WellSouth working with medical practices and with SDHB.  

Here is how Dr Graham summarises New Zealand’s success with fighting COVID-19.

“We are lucky because of our geography. We had time to prepare. The government did well introducing strict measures early, and the community was ready for it. Our population have bought into the importance of the efforts to contain COVID-19, and it’s also quite easy to monitor our borders. We have been able to test widely for COVID-19, identifying and isolating people appropriately. ”

His message to the people of Otago and Southland?

“I hope that everyone is holding up. I understand that the effects upon the community of the disease and its control have been very severe (particularly financially) for many. We are currently in a very good position with the flattening of the COVID curve. Don’t take this for granted and please follow the guidance according to the level we are in. We don’t want a second wave of disease. If you develop symptoms of COVID-19 please have a test done.”

“General Practice is open for business. If you are unwell please seek medical attention. If you contact your practice and you need to see a doctor you will be seen. This may be by phone, videocall or in-person depending on the need,” Dr Graham said.