Published in the Australian Business Review
How Covax Australia’s post pandemic pivot is easing aged care staffing crisis
Australia edges closer to the widely predicted “insolvency cliff”, one pandemic-sparked company – which emerged almost overnight to become a crucial part of the national response to Covid-19 – has pivoted its business to continue its growth trajectory.
Covax Australia arrived in the early days of the pandemic when founders Mannu Kala (a former MedLab Pathology Queensland general manager) and Dr Anuj Gupta (a GP by training) began to see the scale of the crisis and realised there was no way the healthcare system was going to cope.
“At that time, people didn’t quite understand the gravity of the situation and most GP practices were turning away people who had Covid symptoms and, ethically, we felt that was not reasonable as general practitioners to turn away patients,” Dr Gupta said.
“So, we got a tent from Bunnings and we set it up in the car park outside our clinic and started seeing patients there. All we had were gloves. We didn’t even have masks.”
Demand was enormous. From there, the pair worked closely with the federal government to establish Queensland’s first respiratory clinic, only the fifth in the country, and began establishing the protocols needed and how the clinic should be run.