Dr. Gerald Brennan wants to help.
That’s why he, along with medical colleagues from The Minor Illness & Injury Clinic on Corydon Avenue in Winnipeg, dons and doffs personal protective equipment to work at a new COVID-19 testing site set up adjacent to Red River College’s campus on Notre Dame Avenue.
Novel coronavirus cases — and deaths, a record 19 Saturday — are still surging in Manitoba.
It’s the second-hardest hit province after Alberta.
As of Saturday, 349 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Manitoba, 51 of whom are in intensive care.
Meanwhile, 2,981 tests were completed Friday, which brings the total number completed since the start of the pandemic’s reach into Manitoba to 369,154.
The appointment-only, drive-in site is a collaboration between Shared Health, the clinic and the college which began in October as a supplement to the province’s existing testing infrastructure, Brennan said.
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“It’s been fantastic to see these folks come together and put together something that’s pretty efficient and seamless in a short period of time,” Brennan said.
“We’ve got a group of IT people, a group of doctors and nurses, we’ve got Red River College who’s been a fantastic partner, Shared Health, (the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority), everyone’s kind of pulled together so we were actually able to get this site up and running within a very short period of time to try and help out with the demand for testing.”
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Tests are booked online, which Brennan said cuts wait times down.
“We can make it so getting a test done can be done fairly quickly and with as little inconvenience to people as possible, that was our motivation,” he said, noting the average wait is about five minutes.
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