Arabic and Spanish language services have been set up to help former refugees in the South hard hit by Covid-19.
There had been significant spread of the disease across the refugee community in Dunedin, Southern District Health Board planning, funding and population/public health executive director Andrew Lesperance said.
In a report to the SDHB’s community and public health advisory committee, Mr Lesperance said due to high rates of infection in Dunedin’s refugee community, the SDHB and WellSouth used interpreters and cultural liaisons to support the community seven days a week.
Further, WellSouth set up a free 0800 call centre in Arabic for refugees.
In Invercargill, the Colombian refugee community had also experienced a significant wave of Covid-19.
A weekend service was set up there for Spanish speakers.
"The peak of this wave now appears to have passed and the augmented services will be scaled back when deemed appropriate," he said.
WellSouth clinical services manager Katrina Braxton said the Dunedin 0800 number was set up last month as case numbers were rising.
Calls to the number were answered by a cultural liaison from 8.30am to 5pm.
Those answering calls would help the caller get the support they needed, she said.
Evening and overnight calls were redirected to an on-call clinician who could conference-call in a national interpreter service if required.
"The service was set up to provide extra support for Arabic-speaking former refugees at a time when cases in Southern were on the rise and it is still available," she said.
Yesterday, the SDHB said that Covid-19 remained prevalent throughout the region and case numbers continued to hover around 1000 a day.
The South had entered the "long tail" of the wave and with cooler months ahead it was more important than ever to remain vigilant, a statement said.
Covid-19 hospital admissions remained high as the virus spread into the region’s older population.
Those over the age of 65 had a higher likelihood of needing to be admitted to hospital, it said.
There were 27 people in Dunedin Hospital with Covid-19 yesterday, including two patients in intensive care.
There were also cases in hospital at Southland (13), Dunstan (2), Lakes district (1) hospitals.
There were 1065 new positive cases in the South yesterday, the statement said.
The Ministry of Health reported 13 more deaths of people with Covid-19 and 9047 new community cases, nationally.
Nationally, 484 people were in hospital.
