Montford Specialist Centre has continued to operate through the coronavirus epidemic. We have done our best to promote social distancing and mask wearing where possible.If you have respiratory symptoms above-baseline you MUST stay at home and organise a telehealth appointment in place of your face-to-face appointment. Some of our neurology patients are immunosuppressed and we have a responsibility to protect them from unnecessary possible COVID exposure. I am sure you would want the same consideration applied to yourself.
Dr Craig McColl is a physician and Medicare will only support telehealth as a video consultation at present.
Dr Lynda Newman is a GP and Medicare will support telehealth via both a video or telephone consultation.
Telehealth appointments are particularly appropriate for Review Appointments, where your neurologist is likely to have performed an examination of your neurological system at previous visits. They are also appropriate for patients who have no new disabilities since they were last examined. They are a reasonable option for patients who have a primary complaint of headache, well-controlled epilepsy, or stable multiple sclerosis – particularly if your Montford neurologist has already had a chance to examine you. For patients with Parkinson’s Disease, a telehealth appointment is not quite as informative as a face-to-face appointment – a neurologist can assess some of the signs of Parkinson’s Disease over a webcam, but it is not possible to assess muscle tone. On the other hand, patients with Parkinson’s Disease are expected to face a high risk of serious consequences if they contract the virus, particularly if over the age of 70. If you have Parkinson’s Disease and wonder whether you could skip the face-to-face appointment, please discuss this with our front desk staff who can pass the query onto your doctor. In most cases, if it is clear that you need more treatment or that you are happy with your level of treatment, the assessment of muscle tone can be omitted.
To conduct a telehealth appointment, you have the option of using a webcam or telephone.
If you attend for a face-to-face appointment, you will need to adopt the following rules to minimise risk to our vulnerable patients:
- Wait in your car as long as possible rather than sharing the waiting room with others.
- Bring only one relative or friend.
- Do not shake hands or touch anyone unless instructed by the doctor examining you.
- Wash your hands with alcohol at the entrance, on entering, and again on leaving.
- Avoid touching your face, and wash your hands if you accidentally touch your face.
- If you must cough or sneeze unexpectedly, please cough into your elbow or a tissue, and then thoroughly wash your hands. You will need to put on mask if this happens.
- We are still wearing masks when neurology clinics are running. We are not wearing masks when the perimenopause and menopause clinics are running.
If you have any concerns or queries about these measures, please contact us on 5100 9434.