Following the recent outbreak in NSW and increase in community transmission in Victoria, Northern Health was required to rapidly scale-up our testing capacity over the weekend to help reduce the risks of COVID-19 within our community.

“I would like to thank the huge number of staff involved in COVID-19 testing over the New Year’s long weekend. Our Chief Executive, Siva Sivarajah, also extended his appreciation to all staff involved,” said Debra Bourne, Acting Chief Executive.

Chief Executive, Siva Sivarajah, visited our three testing sites on Sunday, to personally thank the staff involved.

“A big thank you to our nursing, pathology, administration, PSA and security staff for this tremendous effort. Many staff worked long shifts and others were called in at the last minute to assist. This is a great example of the dedication of our staff in keeping our community safe,” Ms Bourne said.

“We had record numbers of our community being tested across our Northern Hospital Epping, Craigieburn Centre and Glenroy testing sites, with over 1,100 tests undertaken on Saturday alone – more than any day during the busiest time in 2020!”

This week our Fever Clinic has exceeded 100,000 tests and our own Northern Pathology Victoria has been analysing over 1,000 tests each day.

“Northern Pathology Victoria has a done a fantastic job over the weekend, processing over 1500 samples per day. Our service has also made met a milestone of performing in-house testing for over 1000 samples with a median turn around time of 8-10 hours,” said Associate Professor Prahlad Ho, Program Director of Diagnostic Services.

“I would like to thank the pathology team for their hard work and dedication during this period, which has allowed us to seamlessly deal with this testing surge,” said Associate Professor Ho.

Staff are encouraged to keep up-to-date with the hot spots by viewing the DHHS website.

If you need to be tested for COVID-19, please attend the drive through testing clinic at NCHER and identify yourself as a Northern Health employee.