The mother-of-four, who works within the health sector so wanted to remain anonymous, said she knew her three-year-old daughter's recurrent high fever and cough did not warrant a trip to the ED.

But she said she had no choice.

"She definitely didn't need to spend four hours clogging up emergency on Monday," she said. "She needed to be seen by a GP. I called two different local GP clinics and the second I mentioned she had a fever on the phone they said they wouldn't see her, and that she needed to go to emergency."

The doctor at the packed Tomaree Community Hospital ED had given her daughter paracetamol and advised them to follow up with a GP.

It took a visit to Raymond Terrace Respiratory Clinic to get an x-ray of her daughter's chest.

She has since been diagnosed with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and pneumonia, and wonders if it would have become that bad had she been able to see a GP earlier.

Dr Lee Fong, from Hunter GP Association, said there was "enormous pressure" on general practices to manage patients with respiratory symptoms. Many practices did not have the physical facilities see these patients face-to-face in a way that was safe for staff and other patients.

"Three years ago, it was just a bog standard GP consultation - you walk in, cough/sneeze on the GP, the GP examines you, then you walk out," he said. "GPs would regularly get sick with whatever the patient had. Everybody just accepted that."

But what used to be a 10-minute consultation was now a 30-minute process by the time patients were triaged by a practice nurse, the appropriate personal protective equipment was donned and doffed, the patient was examined and a management plan discussed and executed.

Dr Fong said with the sole exception of dedicated Federal Government Respiratory Clinic, general practices were currently not appropriately funded to see patients with respiratory symptoms face-to-face.

He said the federal government's Raymond Terrace Respiratory Clinic could offer face-to-face appointments, which can be made via hotdoc.com.au.

"There are also some practices that, despite the under-funding, are doing their best to see their patients with respiratory symptoms face-to-face when needed - typically after a telephone-triage process," he said.

"But especially with the under-funding for this, and the general surge in demand, there are likely to be significant limitations regarding available appointments for this."

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