A new testing centre for the novel coronavirus will open after thousands of Montrealers have stood in hours-long lineups waiting to be screened during the past week.
Montreal’s public health department announced Wednesday the new walk-in centre, which is located in the city’s Outremont borough, will accommodate patients from 1 p.m to 8 p.m. starting on Thursday.
The move comes after the city’s public health department called on any person or employee who has been in a bar in Montreal since July 1 to be tested after several new COVID-19 cases were reported. As of Tuesday, authorities reported at least 30 infections tied to nine different bars.
The call for testing — which has been heeded by thousands, according to public health — has led to hours-long lineups in the hot summer sun outside of the city’s Hotel-Dieu hospital, where the walk-in clinic has been flooded with Montrealers.
READ MORE: Montrealers line up for coronavirus testing as bars remain source of concern in Quebec
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said she was heartened to see so many residents want to be tested, but she said more must be done to help them and simplify the process.
“There has to be resources,” she told a crowd of reporters on Wednesday. “I will tell you that I’m happy, I’m touched that Montrealers are responding in such big numbers. It’s good news.”
“But to make them wait four or five hours, that’s unacceptable to me.”
Dr. David Kaiser, a physician with Montreal public health, has also called for more testing facilities to meet the high demand.
Quebec public health authorities said on Wednesday they are trying to ramp up testing capacity in the city. Dr. Richard Massé said they are testing about 200 people per hour at the walk-in clinic at Hotel-Dieu.
“It takes some time to mobilize human resources moved elsewhere in the health system,” he said.
The province performed 9,952 tests on Monday, the last day for which data is available. Premier François Legault said Tuesday the province has the capacity to conduct up to 16,000 tests per day.
Montreal has been the epicentre of the virus’s outbreak in Canada, with more than 27,000 cases to date. The health crisis has killed 3,427 people on the island.
— With files from the Canadian Press
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