Bendigo Coronavirus response: A message from our CEO Gerard Jose

Bendigo Community Health Services and other primary health services are playing a critical role in supporting our clients and the wider community during the response to this Coronavirus pandemic.

Equally important is we will be involved with other agencies and the City of Greater Bendigo in the longer-term recovery of our neighbourhoods and towns across the region.

Keeping our staff, their families and the wider community safe is our primary goal and we need to minimise the number of physical sites we provide services from and work to provide access remotely where possible.  

BCHS will consolidate clinical services at Eaglehawk from Monday and provide limited service operations at our Kangaroo Flat and headspace Bendigo sites. 

We believe by having some sites closed, we will be able to quickly re-open them as alternative service points if we have to close others due to any possible infection outbreaks. This will provide continuity of service for as long as possible.

Our amazing staff have been very creative in the way they have planned to continue supporting our services and ensure people get the care they need. Many of our staff will work remotely from home as this is the most critical measure needed to minimise the spread of Coronavirus.

As a community we must be vigilant and keep the number of people moving around our communities to a minimum and reinforce infection control procedures. 

BCHS will continue to provide services and work with others in response to this Pandemic and we will be a critical part of community recovery in the future. 

People across our communities are working hard to support each other and we know that many households will be impacted personally, emotionally and financially over the coming months. 

As a community we need to take care of ourselves as this recovery will require many current and new services into the future.

Thank you

Gerard Jose

CEO

Bendigo Community Health Services

Related information

Bendigo Coronavirus threat: All the BCHS service delivery changes and site closures

Help Your Neighbour campaign reminds us we're all in this together

Bendigo Coronavirus translated information sheets and videos in Karen, Dari and Dinka

Bendigo Coronavirus update: The latest

www.bchs.com.au I #BCHS #thereforyou 

Coronavirus Bendigo refugee resources: Information in Karen, Dari and Dinka

Last updated: March 29, 2020

Our Settlement Services team has produced information sheets about the Coronavirus threat translated in Karen, Dari and Dinka.

The information has been gathered from the Department of Health and Human Services and our Medical Practice Lead Clinician Gary Bourke. 

We have produced this information in support of our Karen, Afghan and South Sudanese communitites.

Click on the link below to download and print out a PDF version of the Coronavirus information translated in:

Karen:

Karen Coronavirus information sheet: pdf Coronavirus - ways to reduce your risk (Karen) (1.70 MB)  

Karen Coronavirus information translation video - Part 1: bit.ly/CoronavirusKarenPart1

Karen Coronavirus information translation video - Part 2: bit.ly/CoronavirusKarenPart2

Dari (Afghan)

Dari information sheet: pdf Coronavirus - ways to reduce your risk (Dari) (1.33 MB)

Dinka (South Sudanese)

Dinka Coronavirus information sheet: pdf Coronavirus - ways to reduce your risk (Dinka) (1.14 MB)

Dinka Coronavirus information translation video: https://bit.ly/CoronavirusVideoDinka

Bendigo Community Health Services is happy for you to share these resources.

Related information

Bendigo Coronavirus threat: All the BCHS service delivery changes and site closures

Help Your Neighbour campaign reminds us we're all in this together

Bendigo Coronavirus update: The latest

www.bchs.com.au I #BCHS #thereforyou

Bendigo Coronavirus threat: Changes for Bendigo Community Health Services from Monday

Last updated: March 29, 2020

It’s certainly a different world we are living in at the moment.

Organisations such as ours are putting precautions in place to protect our staff and clients from the threat of Coronavirus while we continue delivering essential services to care for the health and wellbeing of the community.

We have been getting a lot of calls from people trying to get appointments because they think we will be closing our doors in coming weeks. Please rest assured our plan and precautions have been developed to make sure that doesn't happen! This increase in calls is placing pressure on our Client Services staff who are doing their very best to answer all the queries but please be aware we might not be able to get to you all. We ask for patience and not frustration in these times.

What we have done is reviewed all our services and programs to ensure we can safely continue to care for you and the community through this Coronavirus period. But the way we deliver some of these services must change.

From Monday, March 30, the following changes will take place for our services:

Our Eaglehawk site at 3 Seymoure Street will become our primary place of service delivery for face-to-face appointments for all services and programs.

Eaglehawk will host our Medical Practice. A screening table has been set up at the front door where one of our nurses will ask every client some important questions before entering the site. Please support us with this safety measure.

All appointments across our more than 50 services and programs that do not need face-to-face contact with one of our staff will now be done by TeleHealth of VideoHealth.
We will contact you well before your appointment to get you ready and it's as easy as answering the phone or clicking on an email link - so please don't worry. We will help you with this. Please note that some of the calls you receive will show as a 'private number' and not the usual Bendigo Community Health Services number. It's OK to answer these it's just that our staff might be using a different phone to make the TeleHealth calls.

Our Central site at 165-171 Hargreaves Street will be closed until further notice.
Face-to-face services offered from this site will move to our Eaglehawk site at 3 Seymoure Street with all others moving to Telehealth or VideoHealth. 
NSP will be offered from Fork In The Road at the front of the arcade from 7.30pm Tuesday to Saturday. Please call the normal NSP number for more details.
Diabetes containers can be collected from Fork In The Road after 7.30pm Tuesday to Friday or from our Eaglehawk site during business hours. Please use disposal bins as normal.

Our Kangaroo Flat site at 19 Helm Street will be closed until further notice.

The Pharmacotherapy service will run as normal from this site.

The headspace Bendigo site will remain open for limited services with most appointments being done by TeleHealth or VideoHealth.

Full list of changes - service by service