Patients presenting themselves to the hospital and those visiting will have to from an alternate entrance. Presentations to the emergency department are still as normal.

NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA) Gunnedah delegate Heather Franke said internal operations were different too.

"People aren't being taken into our waiting room where we do the screening. No one can come in or come out of the hospital without us letting them in, so people have been screened before we even open the door," she told the NVI.

"As far as we're concerned, we all wear our [personal protective equipment], sanitise our hands and things like that.

"For us, things haven't really changed. It's just educating the public to do that."

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The general ward also has new restricted visiting hours, from 10am-11am and from 4pm-6pm, and visitors now need to come through the back door where the physiotherapy section is, rather than the main entrance.

The nurse said there wasn't many new changes to the hospital staff themselves, but the main change would be if a Gunnedah resident tested positive for COVID-19.

"There's strategies in place, staff are aware of what those strategies will be, so we just move along and hopefully it won't come to that but if it does we just move to the next stage," Mrs Franke said.

Mrs Franke said a fair amount of people had been tested for the virus, but only those who matched the criteria.

"They have to fit the criteria: have they been on a cruise, travelled overseas in the last 14 days, been with people that have returned overseas ... otherwise we'd be swabbing everyone and we only have a certain amount," she said.

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