Newcastle GPs are turning away Sydney people trying to book Pfizer vaccines, fearing a positive test could shut down their practices and put doctors and nurses out of action for weeks.
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Elermore Vale doctor Julie Bartlett said she was sifting through online bookings to cancel those made by Sydney and Central Coast residents.
A practice at Wallsend told the Newcastle Herald that it had closed its online Pfizer booking system this week after about 10 Sydney people booked on the first day it was open to new patients.
Another Newcastle doctor offering Pfizer said he had not opened vaccine bookings to new patients yet but Sydney people "should not be coming here".
Dr Bartlett said the NSW government should change a "stupid loophole" in the public health orders which allows people from Greater Sydney to travel to regional NSW for medical appointments, including vaccination and elective surgery.
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She said she understood the desperation of Sydney people wanting to get vaccinated quickly, but the risk to her practice was too high.
"From day dot, the public health order has been far from clear," she said.
"Nowhere in that public health order have they stated whether it would be reasonable to leave a locked-down local government area to attend a non-lockdown area for any of those procedures.
"Anyone reasonable would know that wouldn't be the spirit of a lockdown, would it? But we're not dealing with reasonable people; we're dealing with worried people, panicked people.
"And, if there's a loophole, why wouldn't you use it?"
NSW recorded 170 new locally acquired cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Thursday, down from a record 239 the previous day, but Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned the numbers would "bounce around".
NSW hospitals are treating 187 COVID patients, 58 of them in intensive care.
Dr Bartlett said the impact of a patient visiting her practice while infectious would be "massive".
"My practice is then locked down. I'm at risk, all of my staff are at risk. All of the people who have to wait for 15 minutes after the vaccination are at risk," she said.
"And, if I'm on a stay-at-home order because I've been in contact with someone, that means all of my family are on a stay-at-home order, so that's another health professional out of the system for two weeks.
"Most of our staff are married to other health professionals. It would just be devastating.
"I don't know in what parallel universe you want to knock out the adjacent medical population."
Dr Bartlett said she had written to the Premier and local MPs about changing the public health orders.
"As I understand it's quite a legal loophole, but it's a stupid loophole," she told the Newcastle Herald.
"Anyone with any understanding of infection control would have to understand that that's really dumb.
"The patients are acting within the law because no one higher up has got the guts to say this is not on."
Another Pfizer vaccination centre, Raymond Terrace Respiratory Clinic, said it was vaccinating people from the Central Coast and Sydney out of hours but, unlike GP practices, had isolation rooms to separate patients.
NSW Health did not respond to a request for comment by deadline, but a government source said travelling to Newcastle from Sydney for vaccinations and medical appointments was "not in the spirit" of the stay-at-home orders.
The source said the orders had been designed to allow people in Greater Sydney to visit their GP if the practice happened to be just outside the lockdown zone.
Dr Bartlett wrote in her letter that she would "appeal to the sensibilities of my medical colleagues who are continuing to perform elective procedures on people from locked down LGAs".
"There's also people travelling up here for elective procedures in private hospitals, which again is completely within the public health order, but it's just really silly," she told the Herald.
NSW Health announced on Friday afternoon that it would suspend all non-urgent surgery in Sydney, but not Wollongong and the Central Coast, from Monday.
Dr Bartlett also alleged people from Sydney, Wollongong and the Blue Mountains were "turning up in buses" at the Belmont vaccination hub.
"At the hub, they can't turn people away. I'm a private practice; I can do whatever I want. But, at a government facility where they've got a valid booking, how do we stop that?
"People need clarity on what is acceptable, and that's not coming from above."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Friday evening that 80 per cent of Australians would need to be fully vaccinated before lockdowns ended, vaccinated people could live unrestricted and caps were removed on vaccinated people returning from overseas.
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Michael Parris
Michael Parris reports on politics for the Newcastle Herald. He started at the Herald in 1994 after working in the ABC Newcastle newsroom. Michael spent much of his career as a sub-editor before moving into political reporting in 2017. He was a finalist in the Sports Australia national media awards for his stories about a male-only tennis club in Newcastle. He has covered NSW and federal elections, state and federal budgets and local politics. He has also written extensively about the COVID-19 pandemic with a special focus on data analysis and the effects of lockdowns on the Hunter community.
Michael Parris reports on politics for the Newcastle Herald. He started at the Herald in 1994 after working in the ABC Newcastle newsroom. Michael spent much of his career as a sub-editor before moving into political reporting in 2017. He was a finalist in the Sports Australia national media awards for his stories about a male-only tennis club in Newcastle. He has covered NSW and federal elections, state and federal budgets and local politics. He has also written extensively about the COVID-19 pandemic with a special focus on data analysis and the effects of lockdowns on the Hunter community.
