District's telephone hotline helps get COVID-19 test results to more than 40,000 people.

More than 50 Sydney Local Health District workers are staffing a special telephone hotline set-up to contact patients with negative results to COVID-19 tests.

“We talk to people who have been tested for COVID-19 in Sydney Local Health District when there’s a test result for them,” Amanda Yates, Program Manager for the Clinical Governance and Risk Unit, said.

“We ring them or they can ring us for their result and ask questions about what they need to do now,” Amanda said.

The call centre is staffed by employees who’ve been redeployed from the District’s Clinical Governance and Risk Unit, Community Health, Drug Health, Child and Family, and Information and Communication Technology teams.

The call centre was set up at RPA on 10 March 2020.

"We've been able to close more than 40,000 cases so far [as of late May] and that's going up all the time with the volume of testing that we're doing," Amanda said.

The call centre is open from 8am to 10pm seven days a week.

“It allows us to return as many calls as we can, as quickly as we can. And, it allows people to be able to call us when they’re worried as well.

“I’m really proud of this team. Everyone is doing a really great job… being kind and compassionate and working to make a difference at this really hard time,” Amanda said.

For more, please click here to view a video about our COVID-19 Call Centre.