Martin and Nicole Butcher's 11-year-old son Jacob was in contact with two children, in separate instances, who tested positive to COVID-19 on October 16 and 22.

Mr Butcher said the parents of the positive children told him that Jacob was a close contact, but they had not received notification from the Department of Health or the COVID-positive children's schools.

"He's not been identified anywhere as a primary close contact," he said.

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"A greater concern from a community perspective is that the Department is leaving it up to the schools to manage primary close contacts.

"Our frustration is because his exposure was outside the school, nobody wants to know about it."

Mrs Butcher said the Department of Health was overwhelmed.

"I don't necessarily think they don't care, I just think they're overwhelmed and don't have enough staff," she said.

"I think we weren't notified because it's a social contact and they're more interested if schools get COVID.

"So if it happens outside of school, people are falling through the cracks."

Mrs Butcher said the information the family had received had been confusing.

"When got tested one lady told us to stay isolated until you get contacted by the Department and the next lady along the line said wait until you get a negative result," she said.

Mrs Butcher said she had tried to call the Department of Health's 1300 hotline for people who are a close contact or who have been to an exposure site to figure out what the family needed to do, who needed to isolate and for how long.

"We want to do the right thing and we also have carers coming into the house to help with the household because we both have cerebral palsy," she said.

"But you just get a recorded message and you go through all the prompts and then they say goodbye, because we're too busy to take your call.

"I rang them twice and both times that happened."

The Border Mail contacted the Department of Health for a response.

Mrs Butcher said the family, not being able to get any advice, decided not to wait until the Department called before leaving isolation.

"We waited until we got a negative result, because we'd all be in isolation still and without help, because we couldn't have staff coming in, so we just made the decision," she said.

"I'm actually shocked, because we're nearly two years down the track and their communication is still really really bad and the consistencies of the stories are different and that's what's really tiring.

"But when it's a public safety issue you need to have concrete information."

Mrs Butcher said she finally got onto the disability liaison officer at Albury Wodonga Health, who was following up the inquiry for them.

She said she was also concerned about other people with disabilities navigating the system.

"What would they do, they'd just give up," she said.

"I was exhausted yesterday after a couple of hours on the phone."

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