Blame those in charge, not frontline staff

Radio NZ reports:

Workers at Covid-19 testing sites are copping abuse as frustrations boil over at the limited access to rapid antigen tests amid the growing Omicron outbreak, Dr Bryan Betty says.

The Porirua GP and medical director of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners said some members of the public were becoming verbally abusive to staff when denied access to tests.

The Capital and Coast District Health Board said yesterday their testing teams were experiencing an unacceptable level of abuse.

It came as the Ministry of Health reported 22,527 new community cases yesterday bringing the total of active community cases confirmed across the country to 152,358 – though experts expect it would actually be much higher.

Dr Betty said the supply of tests available for the public was tight at the moment, but about 20 million were in the country and being distributed to providers.

“This level of frustration and anxiety that some people are displaying, we just need to be a bit pragmatic about it and realise if you have symptoms just stay at home until you can access a RAT test,” he said.

The problem is that the distribution of RAT tests, at least in Wellington is a cluster f**k. It took us three days and four attempts to get some. The staff at collection points contradict the information given out on their websites. The queues can be up to three hours. Making sick people spend three hours in a car just to get hold of a test, is ridiculous, and it is no wonder so many people are stressed and lashing out.

Of course they should not lash out at the poor staffers on the front line. It isn’t their fault the Government didn’t order enough tests early enough, and that the local DHB has set up an incompetent distribution system for them. The anger should be saved for those in charge.

It should not be this hard to get a test. Yes some people are lucky and in their areas they can get a test quickly. But there are a hell of a lot of people who are spending hours and hours trying to do something that should take ten minutes.