Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health has added another testing clinic for clients of a Guelph nail salon that was the focus of an infection control investigation so they can get tested for hepatitis and HIV.
Health officials have been hosting clinics at their location on Chancellors Way since Wednesday after a recent inspection at Victoria’s nail salon on Stone Road West revealed a “lapse in infection control procedures” with the manicure and pedicure equipment.
“We had an individual who had tested positive for a blood-borne infection,” director of community health Rita Isley said. “Through our investigation of risk factors that potentially were the source of the infection this salon came up.”
Management rectified all of the violations during the inspection and Public Health said the risk of infection to the salon’s clients is low.
But Isley said Public Health can’t guarantee there is no risk and for those reasons, it is asking clients to get tested.
“We’re not suggesting that the person who went there infected anyone or that person got infected from the salon. We don’t know either way,” she said. “Because there is a potential risk, we want the public to get tested.”
Clinics have been at capacity and patients have waited hours to get tested. As of Friday at noon, the wait time was about two hours.
“People were arriving here before 8 a.m. to get in line,” Isley said. “It creates a bit of a bottleneck and those in the middle were waiting for about four hours.”
Officials are now holding another test clinic on Monday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at their Chancellors Way location.
Public Health said clients can also contact their primary care provider to schedule an appointment to get the appropriate paperwork for blood tests.
“This isn’t an emergency in the sense that you need to go get tested immediately,” Isley said.
“We’re creating these clinics to allow the people, who don’t have physicians or are really quite anxious with the possibility of getting tested, an avenue to get testing quickly.”
More information on the clinics can be found on Public Health’s website.