Effective today 1 September 2021 all New Zealanders over the age of 12 years of age are eligible for booking and receiving a  Covid vaccination. Due to Level 3 lockdown social distancing requirements we need to social distance patients while they are on-site, so please help us to keep you safe by observing signs around the clinic, and please be kind to our team should there be delays – it has been distressing over the last week or so for our team to receive abuse by our community when booking or rebooking vaccine appointment times.

At this stage ALL vaccinations are being done from our Beach clinic – 43 Te Moana Road, Waikanae Beach (not our main clinic in Marae Lane), which is a dedicated vaccination site for the foreseeable future.

We are now vaccinating all age groups for those over 12 years of age.

Please note that for each vaccination, you will be required to stay on-site for 15 minutes to be observed for any reactions to the jab, so you will need to factor this into your booking time.

Our vaccination team are working 5 days per week (Mon-Fri), 6 hrs per day. We will from time to time run Saturday clinics as well. We ask for patience and understanding that we have a large patient base that needs to be vaccinated – you will be vaccinated, we are doing our very best to get this done as expediently as possible.

Parking at our beach clinic – we ask, to minimise parking space, that where possible you come for your jab with family/friends/neighbours.

There are 4 ways you can book –

• MyIndici – if you are registered on MyIndici you can book your appt. NB: you can book an appt for someone who is not on MyIndici (as long as they are one of our patients), so if you have a spouse, family member or neighbour that you are wanting to book for, you can do so.
• BookMyVaccine – click here to book
• Website – click here to request a booking. Our team will confirm the day/time of the appt when it has been booked. You can request a booking for multiple people on the website, but you will need their DOB to do so. We will then work the bookings so they are at the same time, if possible.
• Call – our team are available for taking calls for those people who do not have the confidence to book over the website, and are not on MyIndici. We ask that you keep these calls away from our peak call times and call after 2pm (NB: we have someone on our phones until 5.30pm each day)

Important note: We ask that if you are registered on our patient portal (MyIndici), or can use the BookMyVaccine site, or our website, please do so to book rather than calling, as this will unnecessarily limit our ability to answer calls for those requiring urgent medical care.

Supply of the vaccinate is not guaranteed! We expect that there may be delays in getting vaccines, we ask for your patience if we need to reschedule your appointment at any time – this is totally out of our control, responsibility sits with the Ministry of Health and CCDHB.

COVID-19 Vaccination
The COVID-19 vaccine is free, safe, and effective. Everyone in New Zealand aged 16 or older can get vaccinated before the end of 2021, regardless of residency or citizenship status.
Two doses of the vaccine, at least three weeks (maximum 6 weeks) apart, will protect you.

How the vaccine works
The vaccine works by teaching your immune system to recognize and fight off the virus. It doesn’t have the virus in it, or anything that can affect your DNA. The vaccine cannot give you the disease.

The vaccine is safe.
Medsafe is the Government organization that registers all medicines in New Zealand. They make sure it is safe to use by assessing all of the research and information from around the world. Medsafe has gone through this process with the COVID-19 vaccine, and they have approved it for New Zealand use.

How many vaccinations will I need and how long does it take?
As per the Prime Minister’s announcement on 12^th August 2021, it is now recommenced that the 2^nd dose of the vaccine be between 21 days (3 weeks) and 42 days (6 weeks). After the vaccine you will need to stay for 20 minutes to be monitored. Each appointment will take approximately 30-40 minutes, perhaps longer if there are queues.

Flu or COVID- 19 Vaccination first?
It is a good idea not to have the flu vaccination within 2 weeks of a COVID -19 vaccination, purely so we can monitor the side effects of both. If you are due for the COVID-19 vaccine and the flu vaccine, having the COVID-19 vaccine takes priority over having the flu vaccine. If you do not know when you are going to be offered the COVID – 19 vaccine and have not been invited it makes sense to go ahead with the flu vaccination. https://www.healthnavigator.org.nz/medicines/c/covid-19-vaccine-and-flu-vaccine/

Be kind. Stay at home. Wash your hands. We are all in this together again!

While Level 3 frees up our community to move around a little so we can ‘click & collect’ at our local shops & cafes, the restrictions do not change the way our clinic needs to run –

• We are open and available for your healthcare during Level 3 – including until 10pm every evening, and on weekends 8am – 10pm (with a clinic running 9am – 1pm on Saturdays)
• Masks remain mandatory when coming into clinic, as they are for our staff to use them as well. Please bring your own if you have one, or we can provide you with one when you arrive at the clinic.
• We will continue with a majority of our consultations being virtual (even ACC & WINZ certs can be done virtually now!), with only those people who really need to be in the clinic being brought in. Our clinical team will be assessing these on a case by case basis, and if you already have a pre-booked appointment, then we’ll be in touch – there is no need for you to call us.
• Our front doors will remain closed until we move to Level 2 – please use our intercom to discuss with our team the nature of your visit – you will be screened before coming in. We appreciate this can be frustrating but it keeps all of us at a minimum of risk.
• If you have flu type illness, chest or airway symptoms (sore throat, cough, runny nose, fever, body aches, loss of shell and/or taste, skin rash and headaches) OR you have been to Auckland over the last 14 days, please do not come into the health centre – call us to arrange an appointment, and you will be met at our back-door (entrance on Ngaio Road).
• If you need to come into the clinic, if you are capable of coming in on your own then please do so – only bring a support person if there is a clinical need. Anyone coming into the practice will be screened and will be asked to wear a mask. Our staff will wear masks as well – this is simply to protect everyone.
• Our Covid vaccination programme continues, with our Beach Clinic being setup as a dedicated vaccination site – go to bookmyvaccine.nz to book your spot. From 1^st Sep 2021 anyone over the age of 12 is now able to be vaccinated.

We are open and we are here to help you, your family and our community, when you need us. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their efforts in helping to stamp out this latest outbreak of Covid-19.

You can still get your 2021 Influenza Immunisation. If you have been waiting, thinking you would get your Covid vaccination first, with the 6 week delay in the Covid vaccine supply, you should consider getting your flu shot now.

To book please either use the “Arrange an appointment” function at the top of our website, or call our reception team (04 293 6005). Bookings via our patient portal, MyIndici are no longer available for the flu clinics.

For more information and to check if you are eligible for a free vaccination, please go to www.fightflu.co.nz or call 0800 466 863.

From Thursday 1^st of April 2021, we have discontinued our Telephone Nurse phone line.

We want to be clear that this is NOT taking away this valuable nursing service, and you will still be able to get your questions answered. We know that it has been a consistent frustration for our patients to experience long wait times, and over the past few months we have been analyzing the nature of the requests from patients to the nursing team, in order for us to improve our service to you. We have also spoken with other health practices to see how they manage this service. Did you know that many practices do not have nurses on the other end of the phone waiting for patients to call in?

Our nurses report that many patients who become suddenly unwell, or who want to make an appointment with the doctor, think they have to speak to a nurse to arrange an appointment – this is absolutely false and can in fact lead to a longer wait time for your need to be assessed.

Our vision is to be able to effectively assess for urgency, and have set up the following ways you can get in touch with our nurses.

Please do not use the following mechanisms for urgent issues (for example when you are unexpectedly unwell) – call our reception team who will ask you 4-5 yes/no questions so that they can determine if you need to speak with our Triage Nurse (who assesses urgency into both our Urgent Care Unit and Rapid clinics), or if your doctor needs to call you to assess you.  See our overview on management of urgent/same-day appointments here.

We have seen an increase in patients walking in to the clinic to ‘just speak with a nurse for just a moment’. Effective Thursday 1^st of April 2021 this option will not be available – if your need is clinically urgent, you will be assessed by our Triage Nurse (who is attached to our Urgent Care Unit) – please note this service carries a small charge, should you not need to see a Doctor or Nurse Practitioner as a result of your visit. We appreciate it may appear that we have plenty of nurses available, the reality is that you take a nurse away from another patient who may be waiting for their appointment, or who has a more urgent need than you. We ask that you refrain from this practice, and get in touch with us as outlined below.

Please be assured that we have ways that all patients can get in touch with our nurses –

• Email/message the nurse via MyIndici and outline the nature of your question/concern – these messages should be clear about what you are wanting an answer to, but kept as concise as possible, remembering that nurses have full access to your notes. However, please do not just email ‘please call’ as this is not specific enough to determine priority of reply.

In MyIndici, go to Messaging, click on the compose button, select Nurse as Provider and then Admin Nurse from the -Select Provider- box

NB: you can sign up to MyIndici from our website https://waikanaehealth.co.nz/myindici/ or give our team a call (04 293 6005 option 2) – our reception team can get you started and show you some tips & tricks on how to get the best out of MyIndici.

• If you are not on MyIndici and have internet access you can Request a Callback (top right of webpage) via our website https://waikanaehealth.co.nz – select from the drop-down Nurse or clinical query, enter your contact details and Submit
• Call our reception team (04 293 6005 option 1) who can book a telephone consult with our nursing team – please do not be offended if you are asked what you would wish to discuss, as this helps us to prioritise your need
• If you have a general health question you can also call Healthline on 0800 611 116 for 24/7 nurse advice

We are committed to responding as quickly as we can, but wait-times may vary depending on the nature of your query – it may be that our team will need to speak with your doctor before they give you a call back.

Our focus is for responses to these queries generate a call to you by the appropriate nurse, so you do not need to write a bible (for MyIndici) – remember that our nursing team has access to your medical notes – the longer it takes to read your message, the longer the response time may be.

Remember that you can use option (1) and (2) above to also request a call-back from our reception and accounts teams.

Our nursing services are chargeable so please be aware that if the nurse is able to help you over the phone or via MyIndici, then the following charges may apply –