The AMA has called for Victoria’s health department to be “less defensive” and more transparent about its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

AMA Victoria president Professor Julian Rait also called on the government to accept the support of GPs, who have complained about being sidelined in the contact tracing and case management processes.

Citing the outbreak at the Cedar Meats abattoir — the largest cluster of the state’s first wave — he said there was a respiratory clinic just “four kilometres down the road”.

He told a parliamentary inquiry into the state’s contact tracing system on Monday that doctors at the clinic spoke Burmese, the first language of most of the abattoir workers.