From the trailers to the building ahead of the worst of winter.
The COVID-19 Assessment Centre will now be located in the Medical Building beside the Thunder Bay Health Sciences Centre.
“Please do not enter the medical building. We’ve spent a lot of time and effort in putting in an exterior door on the Golf Links side of the building. You enter through that door in order to help keep the patients and staff of the medical building safe,” instructs Jackie Park, Manager of Pandemic Community Collaboration, Screening and Assessment.
This move has been a long time coming, with the goal being to not make patients wait outside for their test.
Park stresses should the need arise for more testing, there is the capability to meet the challenge.
“If we need to [increase staffing levels], we’ll be able to run out of five rooms rather than just three [at the Assessment Centre]. We’ll continue to have the space at Confederation College, which has two testers right now [One nurse, One EMS employee] but we can add two more testers,” adds Park. “I feel much more comfortable now than I did in the beginning when we were struggling and I was worried about we were going to get everyone tested.”
Park explains if you call or go online for a COVID-19 test the focus is on same day tests, which she says has decreased the amount of no shows, and determines who needs a test right away.
