Locals are feeling the pressure of a significant winter illness surge, with reports of around 25 teachers off sick and hundreds of students away with flu symptoms.
The local impact comes as Health New Zealand reports a significant surge in winter illness across the health system, including community and primary care, Healthline, ambulance services, Emergency Departments and hospitals. Health NZ says the peak is expected to last for several more weeks.
Health NZ Chief Executive Dr Dale Bramley is encouraging people to save Emergency Departments for emergencies, while reminding the public that other healthcare options are available for those who do not require urgent care.
“We are here when people need us and we have also invested in many other ways of supporting people to get the right care they need,” Dr Bramley said. “If you don’t need emergency care, using these other options will help our ED teams around the country to focus on those who need their expert care the most.”
Waimea College principal Fraser Hill emailed parents last week warning that some children may be rostered to learn from home due to staff shortages.
“We wanted to make you aware that we are currently experiencing a high level of staff illness across the school. At the same time, we are also seeing significant numbers of students absent due to illness. While we are doing everything possible to maintain normal operations, staffing the school fully is becoming increasingly challenging,” he said.
“If staffing levels continue to be affected, we may need to implement measures to ensure learning programmes can continue safely and effectively. In the first instance, this may involve combining classes. If staff absences reach a point where this is no longer manageable, we may need to roster Year 9 and Year 10 students to learn from home on designated days. This would allow us to prioritise senior programmes and minimise disruption for students approaching end-of-year assessments.”
By Friday, that had become a reality, with Year 10 students asked to learn from home. On Monday, Year 9 students were working from home.
Waimea Intermediate has also issued a letter to parents asking that sick children remain home.
“We are hopeful that we have already seen the peak of this current wave of illness and that both students and staff will soon be back to full health,” Fraser said.
