She knows if she were to feel more respiratory niggles or a sore throat, she would wait it out as long as she needed for a test result again.

Her concern was others in her shoes might be more tempted to disguise any potential symptoms to keep working rather than use up leave or try to apply for the state government's new $1500 hardship grant for self-isolating.

The healthcare worker's role deals closely with immuno-suppressed patients. She started feeling symptoms on Saturday a week ago and had a test on the Monday with a medical certificate for three days' leave, factoring in the two-to-three days' average wait for results.

But each day results could not be found.

She said the delay had eaten in to her sick leave and disrupted patient flow on a daily basis when she rang up to cancel work without any colleagues to fill in for her.

Premier Andrews announced a hardship fund on Monday for people who did not have access to sick leave or who were in tenuous work positions in a bid to take away barriers to putting public health above personal financial security.

The healthcare worker said the not knowing when her result would arrive was the worst part. She felt she was "left hanging" and unable to plan anything, not to mention the stress of what interactions with patients might have caused before she felt symptoms.

"I appreciate pathology has probably got thousands of samples everyday from people getting tested," she said. "...That's all great but if you can't get results, especially for frontline workers, it's a problem."

UFS primary care operations manager Danielle Trezise confirmed the average wait for results was still two to three days for the Lucas fever clinic.

This has dropped dramatically after a lengthy backlog in the wake of the May statewide testing blitz.

Ms Trezise said unfortunately there were the occasional outliers for which the clinic could not explain nor source results.

The UFS-led Lucas clinic expanded its hours on Monday, running 8am to 10pm on weekdays, with a fifth consult room added to lift the region's testing capacity and decrease waiting times for tests. UFS aims to get down to same-day tests for patients, who must pre-book their test.

Ms Trezise said spaces were still filling up quickly with Tuesday booked out by about lunchtime on Monday - excepting appointments kept aside for the most urgent cases, including healthcare workers.

UFS has also been referring people to the new Ballarat Community Health-led screening clinic in Little Bridge Street to help people be tested sooner.

More than 1.33 million COVID-19 tests have been processed in Victoria.

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