New Minister of Health visits testing centre

In his first official visit as Minister of Health, Chris Hipkins dropped into Tāmaki Health’s St Lukes CBAC (community-based assessment centre) to see how things were run.

"It was great to see the new Minister of Health on the ‘frontline' on only his second day in the role,” says Tamaki Health’s Director of Urgent Care, Dr Alistair Sullivan. 

During the visit, Mr Hipkins was given his first taste of PPE, and even helped to test a patient for Covid-19. 

"We ran him through the whole process from patient arrival and assessment to swabbing and sending samples to the lab. Then we got him garbed up in full PPE and took him to help one of our nurses take a swab from a patient in a car.”  

Finally, Mr Hipkins was shown the formal process of removing PPE. 

“He definitely knows what happens in a CBAC now!" says Dr Sullivan.