Some tips for keeping mentally well in COVID

I hope you’re all keeping safe and well I know we’re feeling a bit tired and a bit sick of hearing about COVID. I wanted to share with you some tips to keep yourself mentally well during these times – they’ve helped myself, my family and my team.

Choose what you need to know – don’t spend your day watching rolling news and endlessly scrolling social media pages (especially the comments section). Check in once a day with trusted sources, and keep doing what you know will keep you safe.

Don’t get caught up in the negativity. We’re tough, we get through droughts and floods and plagues. We know how to batten down and get on with things. When our chips have been down before we’ve bounced back, have faith that we will do that again.

Vaccination and testing – you’ve heard the message enough now over the past 18 months.

If you have symptoms get a test. Vaccinations are available and pop-up clinics are coming to your town over the next few months, talk to your doctor and make a vaccination plan. Be patient with the process, it’s not perfect but it’s what we have.

Think the best in people not the worst. I know there are people who aren’t doing the right thing but they are the minority.

Most of us are doing all we can to do the right thing, focus on that. If you need assistance, please reach out to my team. We can put you in contact with the right services and answer your questions.

Getting locked up, and unlocked

In the last few days I have been increasingly contacted by people who want to know what I am doing about getting us out of lockdown, or changing rules to get us more freedom.

I want to explain why I have supported lockdown, and why I have kept people up to date on the rules that have been put in place.

While I do not agree with every decision that has been made, and I certainly will not stand by and allow restrictions to remain in place any longer than absolutely necessary there are some very real reasons why we need to do what is being asked of us.

In Barwon, as many of you would know we don’t have widespread medical coverage. We don’t have a health system in the bush that can support people who need high level care. Almost every one of us knows someone who has been medically evacuated to a bigger town for medical reasons. Now our system can only deal with a certain number of evacuations per day, there’s not infinite capacity.

These problems aren’t new, and they’re not COVID specific. Since 2019, I have raised the issues with our health system in parliament, I have and continue to advocate for more nurses in the bush, more doctors, increased aeromedical capacity, more paramedics. The Regional Health Care Inquiry is ongoing and these issues will be addressed but the system can’t be improved overnight to deal with widespread COVID cases.

COVID case numbers

In the last week we have had positive cases of COVID in a number of our towns and positive sewage detections in a few more. The numbers are getting reported through various mediums, but I know there is some confusion about the where, when and how many. This confusion is compounded by the NSW COVID-19 website reporting cases in locations where there is no positive cases – this is occurring mainly due to people not updating their current address, and Western NSW being reported as a homogenous block at the daily press conference.

What I will say on the case numbers and locations is that I need everyone in Barwon to understand you should be acting as if COVID is in your community whether it is on the daily list or not. COVID is no longer a Sydney problem. It’s no longer localised to a handful of LGAs. This is real and it is in our towns right now. Every day on my social media channels I publish a COVID update based on information from NSW

Health, NSW Police and the Local Health Districts.

Testing wait times

In the last week I have spoken to the Health Minister regarding how long it’s taking to get COVID test results back.

Across Barwon we have people who have been waiting for over a week to get their results back.

I have been told that there were issues with tests being delivered to pathology labs and that the labs were overwhelmed by the number of tests.

The Local Health Districts and NSW Health are putting more resources towards testing which will hopefully translate into people receiving their results over the coming days and in the future within a reasonable time.

I have been asked to pass on the following numbers. I will note people are having varied success at getting through.

NSW Health – No results after 72 hours, call 1300 066 055.
Laverty – No results after 48-72 hours, call 13 39 36.
Histopath – No results after 24 hours, call 9878 8173.

Roy Butler, State Member for Barwon