General news

The community is so fortunate in having senior doctors working for them for so many years through Foster Medical Centre. Trevor Andrews has worked as a Rural GP for 28 years, 20 of them in Foster. Michael Fitzgerald came back to Foster to work 14 years ago, after initially coming as a registrar in 1980.…

On the coldest day of the year we had out last Drive-through Flu Clinics last Saturday. Over the last 5 weeks we have vaccinated over 1400 people against influenza and everything went to plan. No major reactions (no one had to toot their horn in the waiting carpark!) and by all reports people loved the…

We have plenty of online appointments available THIS Thursday for COVID vaccinations. We are now immunising ALL those over the age of 50.The quickest way to book is through the HOTDOC appointment online system which is now up and running smoothly. Go to health.gov.au and Eligibility Checker. Quickly, after answering a few questions and supplying…

The dual challenges of providing both the influenza and the COVID vaccines to the community continues to absorb a lot of our time and effort. Uptake of the flu shot has been pretty good; it is a vaccine that people have had each year for many years and feel comfortable and familiar with. We have…

As of Monday May 3 we will start immunising people over the age of 50 with the COVID vaccine, in line with stage 2a of the National Rollout. And we have now for the first time opened up a day (Thursdays) on the online booking HotDoc service! So you can make an appointment one of…

Our second of possibly 5 Saturday flu clinics went ahead on Saturday and another 200 or so people were vaccinated. Thankyou again to our helpers and to everyone for being so on time! We are accepting bookings through the reception at FMC for any over the age of 65 for the remaining clinics. For those…

by Adjunct Associate Professor Priscilla Robinson, Department of Public Health, La Trobe University The news about the AstraZenica (AZ) vaccine has been full of ‘It’s safe, but look someone just had a dangerous clot! It’s safe but look someone just died!’ kinds of headlines. We know that many people are really confused and a little…

The clinic continues to vaccinate at a rate of approximately 200 a week all those over the age of 70 and all others in stage 1b of the rollout. (For details of eligibility we again refer you to the health.gov.au website and search eligibility). As discussed last week, when the rare side-effect of ‘Thrombosis (clotting)…

We had a successful first Flu Clinic outside the High School’s Gymnasium on Saturday and for once the weather was pretty kind for us! Last year it seemed as if flu clinics attracted some of South Gippsland’s wildest weather and we are hoping for a better run this year.Thankyou all that helped on Saturday and…

We are now opening up spaces on the flu clinic on Saturday 24th April for people of all ages who have chronic diseases and require the flu shot.Please ring the medical centre and you will be given a time.This will be outside the gymnasium of the Foster Secondary School in the bus turning lane, Pioneer…