London, Ont., has nearly reached two weeks of sustained wait times of two hours or more at its two main COVID-19 assessment centres and the situation appears to be worsening.
At 9:59 a.m. Friday, the Middlesex-London Health Unit tweeted that the Carling Heights Optimist Community Centre location had reached capacity. That assessment centre doesn’t even open until 11 a.m. The Oakridge Arena location, which opens weekdays at 9 a.m., has also reached capacity for the day.
The day before, both the Carling Heights location and the Oakridge Arena location reached capacity before noon for the first time.
Also on Thursday, Mayor Ed Holder issued an appeal to the province to urgently expand COVID-19 testing at pharmacies to the London region. The province announced details of the plan, which allows for select pharmacies to offer testing to people who are not presenting any symptoms of the virus, on Wednesday but none of the initial locations were in southwestern Ontario.
Further exacerbating delays, health unit data shows that only 432 people were seen in total at both assessment centres on Thursday, compared to 837 on Wednesday.
The London Health Sciences Centre announced Friday that issues with testing instruments had resulted in a one-day backlog of tests, “but it is expected that the normal 24-hour turnaround for test results will resume on Monday, September 28.”
“The testing instruments required to process COVID-19 tests have been repaired at the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (PaLM) COVID-19 testing laboratory,” a release from LHSC said.
“We would like to thank our community for its patience as we worked quickly and diligently to restore these critical testing instruments.”
Both testing centres have also implemented a “ticket system” to help manage queues, which involve those who fit the criteria to receive a test receiving tickets and a window of time to return.
Thames Valley Family Health Team, which operates the centres, is hoping an appointment-booking system will be available in early October.
Meanwhile, testing for Western University students, staff and faculty will be moving from a trailer in the parking lot of the university’s Social Sciences Centre to inside the Student Recreation Centre.
As many as 50 Western students were previously known to have tested positive over the last two weeks, though that number is likely higher now following the two double-digit increases in local case counts seen this week.
The London region is not alone in experiencing massive lineups for COVID-19 testing.
The drive-thru testing centre in Kitchener was closed on Wednesday due to unruly residents and traffic snarls caused by long lines of cars and even longer wait times. Residents there have also complained of week-long waits to book an appointment at one of the testing centres.
Guelph saw its assessment centre close five hours early on Thursday because it had already reached capacity.
On Thursday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said “we will have pharmacies in that area to support the people of southwestern Ontario” and that an announcement would be coming “probably in the next couple days.”
— with files from Global News’ Kevin Nielsen and Matthew Trevithick.
Comments