Medical practice, Wingham Wellbeing made the claim on its public Facebook page and urged the community to share its post revealing its "walk-in clinics are over-run with sick patients" and it cautioned people to be "prepared for long waits, defer all non-urgent presentations ... we do not guarantee you will be seen and triage principles apply." It encouraged people to read a NSW government Communicable Diseases Factsheet on Whooping Cough (Pertussis) before calling the practice to try to secure an appointment. 

Wingham Wellbeing general practioner, Dr Jenny Draper said more than 8500 people had seen the Facebook post in 30 hours and urged the community to continue to share it on social media. 

"Hope our pharmacies and medical practices can cope with this increased demand and as a community we can mobilise our defences - consider vaccinations and antibiotics/swabs for new forceful coughs within two weeks of commencement and stay home until you can get to a doctor!" Dr Draper posted on social media.

HNELHD public health physician, Dr Kat Taylor rejected the claim of a "whooping cough epidemic".

Whooping cough (pertussis) is a disease which must be reported to the federal government’s National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS).

“It is a notifiable disease and in the Lower Mid North Coast area we have had 64 cases reported, and for the same period last year there were 65 cases reported. So it is not appreciably different. We would not call it an epidemic in the region,” Dr Taylor said. 

Dr Taylor stressed the need for immunisation and in particular, highlighted the importance of a booster for women who are in the third trimester of pregnancy, preferably between 28 and 32 weeks. 

Whooping cough can be a life threatening infection to babies and older children and adults can pass it on to babies. To learn more about the disease visit www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious