To all Australian Medical Centres and General Practitioners (GP),

“Duty of Care (defined by Medical Negligence Australia) is based on the principle that a person must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which would be likely to harm any person they ought to reasonably foresee as being so harmed.”

Many a wiser parent says that it is a rite of passage for a child to build up their immunity whilst in childcare. It is common within the first two years that they will be in and out of care as they catch every infectious virus under the sun. A sick child exhibiting any infectious symptom/s will be sent home immediately. The childcare centre return-to-care policy is the child must obtain a “medical clearance” from a GP. Any parent will tell you that, a young child is forever showing symptoms of a runny nose, cough, nausea/vomiting or have a mild temperature, diarrhoea, drooling, body rashes, irritability, conjunctivitis or disrupted sleep, often time – all of which, are conveniently COVID-19 symptoms.

It has been two years since COVID-19 has raised its ugly head and caused havoc on all our sanities. COVID has complicated the GP consult process. To obtain a “medical clearance” one of the following options can be undertaken by a parent (in order of preferred preference to least preferred):

1. A telephone GP consult: insufficient consult for a “medical clearance” as GP needs to make a physical assessment on the state of the child in order to give an accurate assessment of the well-being of child;
2. A face to face consult: child must present a negative PCR prior to booking if any one of the extensive list of COVID symptoms exist, otherwise no appointment can be made;
3. One parent to accompany child to the Emergency Department of your local hospital: PCR will be administered if child presents COVID symptoms, normal triage and waiting times will exist.

Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor myself! But my personal experiences lend me to know that there are medical conditions out there where timing is of the essence when it comes to seeking medical care for babies and toddlers (0 to 3 years old). A trip to the ER waiting for care is not particularly fun when heading there alone with your sick child whilst exposing yourselves to potentially catching COVID whilst leaving your other half at home worrying sick about your child and your potential risk whilst out in ED. (Most hospitals now have strict protocols for one accompanying adult with one child)

An example of a medical condition that can be time critical is croup. If timely medical intervention is not taken, worst case scenario includes having to go to the emergency ward or having to live with  complications with life-long lasting effects such as Asthma or other respiratory issues.(1)

Let’s take a look at a trivial hypothetical to help unpack how we are treating COVID-19. Let’s say a patient requests for a consult and they have foot and mouth disease. We know this is a highly contagious and infectious viral. There are no pre-cautions taken by the office prior to physically getting into the Doc’s office that is requested of your patient. I assume that once the condition of the patient is known, then the GP takes the necessary means to barrier themselves from the patient in order not to expose themselves to the virus.

COVID-19 should be treated like any other infectious viral. The same physical assessment is undertaken and protection measures put into place to help reduce the spread. If at this time, the GP makes a call to swab the child for a PCR, then by all means. The childcare centre will probably need this later and this may also help alleviate and give parent’s a peace of mind. However, I do request that you place a mandatory dependency of serving your duty of care with proof of “negative COVID test result” for children under 5.

Resources in supporting my claims:

The Times “Doctors told not to prioritise coronavirus over patients with other serious conditions” (02Apr20): https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/doctors-told-not-to-prioritise-coronavirus-over-patients-with-other-serious-conditions-h7502nhkg

Health Direct Post (24Nov20): https://www.pregnancybirthbaby.org.au/news/visiting-the-gp-with-kids-during-COVID-19

Bioethics “Triaging ethical issues in the coronavirus pandemic” (10Mar21): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bioe.12859

MedPage Today “Kid’s Health Is at the Bottom of the U.S. Priority List” (16Jan22): https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/96691

Please sign this petition:

I pledge to you – to re-consider your duty of care process for children under 5.

I request that you allow yourselves to be available to consult a sick child displaying flu-like symptoms under 5, without a negative COVID test, on the condition that the accompanying adult/s of the child does not present any COVID symptoms, or can present a timely negative COVID result.

I do not want to dictate how you do your job or run your Practice. I request of you kindly to not place COVID-19 on a pedestal which clouds your duty of care judgement when it comes to treating other ailments that is not COVID, but equally if not more severe in nature.

I am not asking you to not protect yourselves nor your practice from catching COVID. I understand very well, why the “negative COVID” check was put into place since Day 1 – to protect our frontline staff and workers. I stand strongly that you should continue to have those processes that work, to help you protect your staff and practice from getting sick. I’m requesting that you do not let other health issues slip through the crack due to the time critical nature of it. Especially for the 0-5 year old cohort of our population whom are not only ineligible for vaccination nor have any other means to protect themselves from being a casualty of COVID-19.

The reason why I’m asking for others to join my pledge now, is I have endured the more than half a dozen line-ups for PCR testing for my child for mild ailments, along with the same number of GP consults over the past two years. Please consider this petition seriously.

Thank you for your time.

Do you know a GP that will see your under-5 without a “negative COVID-19” result? If so, please help me collect their details to share with the wider community. Submit details for collection: https://tinyurl.com/yckua9z2 (I will share data once there is data to share)