There is no winning at a COVID-19 testing site.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It is not a competition about who is having the worse time. Everyone is stressed, no one wants to be there, the impact of having to test and isolate is felt by all.
Spending hours in line for an important test, that for two years has been drummed into you as the number one way to help combat a pandemic, is frustrating.
But once that swab's invaded your nostril and scraped one side of your throat, your time there is over. Done. Finished.
In other news
You get to go home and isolate, hopefully under a fan or air-conditioning, in relative physical comfort despite the flow-on effects of not being able to leave the house. Which, all can agree, are not insignificant.
The nurse that swabbed you, and their colleagues and support staff at the test site, they're still going.
If they're working at an outdoor clinic, they're baking in PPE and plastic amid exhaust fumes and radiant heat.
The pathologists are in the lab testing samples day and night, while we wait anxiously for a text message.
And they keep going, day after day, exposing themselves to risk every hour of their shift. Often with a smile, albeit weary ones at times.
More than 15,000 tests were carried out in the MLHD in the last two weeks. It puts the current situation, and the skyrocketing pressure, into perspective.
More on the pandemic
Australia is two years and its third wave into the pandemic. The entire health system has been pushed to its limits for the last 20 months. And it's about to boom again.
Frustrations about wait times and impacts on businesses and families are never about the amazing people we see working at the coal face of this insidious pandemic.
It's the lack of foresight, of planning, by our elected leaders. It's a result of years of inaction on improving conditions in the health sector for staff and patients alike.
Even if we had all the nurses and all the pathologists we could want - and want we do - they can't operate equipment if it isn't provided by their employer.
To those on the ground, we thank you.