By Sahar Foladi
It’s been over two weeks since the Andrews Labor Government announced the opening of Priority Primary Care Centre (PPCC) in Dandenong to help Dandenong Hospital’s emergency department.
However, Operations Manager, Riekie Jooste said due to lack of advertisement a lot of people weren’t aware of PPCC and what they’re for.
“First of all, one of our challenge for the patient is they don’t understand what PPCC are for because there’s not a lot of advertisements done about it so they don’t know that they have access to after-hours services and they don’t need to go to emergency department.”
The medical group is also located in a very complicated location which confuses the community and people find it difficult to find the care centre.
“Our main challenge that we found was patient couldn’t find us because of the way our address is registered with the council, this whole building area has been registered as 1/134 Logis Boulevard and patients are going to the main gate not knowing which way to go.”
In response to that, the centre is planning to put up signs to help guide the locals to their centre.
The medical group is open from Monday to Sunday from 7am to 11pm with access to X-rays, pathology, ultrasound, CT scan, which are all accessible for after hours as well so people don’t have to go to emergency departments (ED).
“We’ve got some of the best emergency doctors. The emergency nurses that work here are highly qualified,” Ms Jooste said.
The care centre is also fully equipped to look after pregnant women in their first trimester as well as any other patients who need urgent care but not an emergency response.
