Home Guard NZ is calling on available doctors to sign up to help in the Covid-19 crisis. Photo / File
Home Guard NZ is calling on available doctors to sign up to help in the Covid-19 crisis. Photo / File
Hundreds of doctors and other healthcare experts are rallying to help in the fight against coronavirus.
And the initiative has also sparked a huge interest among Kiwi medical students - with a total of 272 also signing up to help however and where ever they are needed.
Home Guard NZ was launched almost two weeks ago after an Auckland doctor - a stay-at-home mum - started to see how Covid-19 was affecting New Zealand and wanted to find a way to help share her medical skills.
Dr Andrea Penman is a University of Auckland trained doctor, but who is a full-time mother to four children aged 3 to 10 years old.
"I'd been thinking about it for quite a while and I wondered how many of us were out there and is this a significant enough [event] that would make people want to help?"
She put her thoughts to a Facebook group for women doctors and was overwhelmed by the amount of support she got from doctors who said they too were wanting to help in some way.
Very quickly, dozens of names and other necessary information from each doctor was collected before more healthcare experts started to put their hands up also.
The aim is to collect and build capacity in healthcare before it grows - and then respond quickly when needed.
Names on the list now include public health physicians, occupational health therapists, general practitioners, emergency doctors and psychiatrists.
"There was amazing willingness.
"It's showing me that there are so many Kiwis who really want to help and I've been so encouraged by people who have [signed up] to help."
There are still conversations being had with appropriate officials - including the Ministry of Health - but effectively, any doctor or healthcare personnel who would be keen to help is being asked to register their name and details on the Home Guard NZ website.
Even overseas-based Kiwi doctors have signed up; offering online medical help.
The group has also enlisted the help of Sam Johnson, founder of the Student Volunteer Army, who brought thousands of university students together to help clean up when Christchurch was hit by earthquakes in 2010 and early 2011.
Penman said she was encouraged to contact Johnson given his now expert knowledge in rallying people in a disaster-type situation and as quickly as possible.
Johnson's involvement came after more and more medical students started to get in touch.
Much of the work they could potentially do is to help those frontline doctors who did not yet have childcare arranged for their children.
