GPs concerned vaccine barriers are adding to record-breaking ED strain

Amid the busiest winter day on record for Sydney emergency departments (EDs), and reported delays in vaccine supply, the RACGP and GP experts are calling for extra support to get more people vaccinated and keep them out of hospitals, as flu season peaks.
 
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has urged people to consider visiting GPs instead of EDs if their condition is not life threatening, as photos emerge of patients waiting on hospital floors following almost 10,000 ED presentations at Sydney hospitals from Sunday into Monday this week.
 
The surge in numbers – also seen in 4100 ambulance callouts across the same period – were
reportedly driven by high numbers of people with flu-like illness.
 
So far in 2026, NSW had more notified cases of COVID-19, influenza and RSV than any other state or territory.
 
With 34,364 cases of influenza, NSW accounted for around half the national total of 67,141 notified cases.
 
It also accounted for 27,549 of the national 57,955 cases of COVID-19 and 46,956 of the national 104,292 cases of RSV.
 
RACGP NSW&ACT Chair Dr Rebekah Hoffman told newsGP these numbers come despite GPs actively encouraging people to vaccinate early.
 
‘Starting from school holidays and increasing from then, we have seen week-on-week higher and higher numbers of both influenza and RSV,’ she said.
 
‘And that’s what we warned people about months and months ago, that we don’t want this to happen, and every year we hope that people get their vaccinations and do sensible things like don’t go out where they’re unwell and stay home and don’t visit nursing homes.’
 
Dr Hoffman added there has also been ‘difficulty’ with vaccine supply.
 
‘There’s always initially difficulty getting supply because we’re wanting to make sure it gets distributed to everybody initially, so there’s always limits on how many you can order in your first week or two of ordering, and then that settles down,’ she said.
 
‘But at the end of the season, so in the last few weeks, there has again been some supply restrictions where GPs and pharmacists haven’t been able to order additional stock when they’ve wanted to.’
 
She said she has had to turn away eligible patients who have asked for the new pneumococcal vaccine.
 
‘There’s been quite significant constraints on the amount of vaccines that we can order for that cohort as well,’ she said.
 
‘I have had patients absolutely wanting to do the best and come in and get vaccinated. And this week we’ve had to tell them, “We don’t have stock, please call at the end of the week, or we’ll give you a call when it comes in”.’
 
A Department of Health, Disability, and Ageing spokesperson said, ‘a substantial volume of RSV, influenza and pneumococcal vaccine is in circulation’. 
 
‘However, in recent years there has been a significant increase in the number of providers administering NIP vaccines leading to some challenges in local distribution of vaccine supply,’ they told newsGP.
 
‘Localised vaccine supply and distribution issues have created temporary interruptions to the availability of the Pneumococcal vaccine Capvaxive. Additional supply of Capvaxive continues to be released and distribution is being fast-tracked.
 
‘There are no known supply issues with any of the NIP funded Influenza or RSV vaccines.’
 
GP and National Immunisation Coalition Chair Dr Rod Pearce told newsGP it is not exactly known why NSW is having such high numbers of respiratory illnesses.
 
‘None of us are really quite sure; the only speculation is that maybe they had a later season last year,’ he said.
 
‘They had a few of the K variant floating around last year, and so maybe there was some leftover virus from last year that has come into this year.
 
‘We’re assuming that the numbers will go down now because it feels like we’re at the end of winter, but we’re never sure of that … no one had a good explanation as to why New South Wales is being so unlucky.’
 
Dr Pearce said that, nationally, the uptake of the nasal spray FluMist had been ‘a bit disappointing’, but there were likely three reasons for that.
 
‘One, that it’s new. Two, is that people haven’t heard of it, and then three – the thing that surprised us – is that some kids say, “I don’t want anything stuck up my nose because you did that during COVID, and I hated it”,’ he said.
 
But Dr Pearce said a loss of federal funding several years ago for infrastructure support within general practice has gradually eroded the success of vaccination programs.
 
‘Service incentive payments and practice incentive payments were funded from 1997 up until about 2008,’ he said.
 
‘Well, that’s the infrastructure that supports the ongoing vaccination, so you wipe that away, and then gradually the vaccination programs are going to fall away because there’s no built-in infrastructure support to pay for nurses’ time and to pay for fridges.’
 
RACGP President Dr Michael Wright added that reliance on EDs ‘as the first and last line of defence’ is unsustainable.
 
‘Long-term underinvestment in prevention and general practice has resulted in people missing out on care until they become seriously unwell,’ he said. 
 
‘Investing in general practice helps people stay healthy, receive care earlier and avoid hospital. That is better for patients, better for families and better for the entire health system.’ 
 
Like Dr Pearce, Dr Hoffman believes funding infrastructure support for general practice to support more vaccinations is needed.
 
‘Historically there were item numbers for nurse immunisers to be able to do this, and that was defunded. That was over a decade ago, though, but there’s many colleagues I have who still fondly remind me of that,’ she said.
 
‘There’s so much we cover off in a general practice visit as patients become more and more complex. If my nurses can – and they can do it – and were funded to do the immunisation component, that would be fantastic.’
 
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