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COVID Testing At Hospital Settles Down

Jason Wellwood August 26, 2020 4:15 pm Last Updated on July 2, 2025 5:17 am

The requests for COVID-19 testing at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre have become more manageable.

Andrea Docherty oversees the hospital’s COVID-19 Assessment Centre and explains when they first took over testing from the Thunder Bay District Health Unit what was, on average, 200 calls a day for testing skyrocketed to about 1,000 per day.

“We’ve leveled out so this week has been not too bad and we’ve able to manage the call volume so people aren’t waiting like they were,” says Docherty.

The hospital official tells us they are now doing about 100 tests a day and they add drive-thru testing when there is a surge of requests.

Jason Wellwood

Originally from southern Ontario, Jason found his way here and fell in love with the community and music scene of Thunder Bay over twenty years ago. In between various stints on radio, television and writing, Jason is a dad, a partner and (some would consider) a zoo keeper (seriously, he has a LOT of pets).

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