London’s COVID-19 assessment centres are scaling back their hours over the holidays, but there will still be plenty of opportunities to get tested, even on Christmas Day.
While the Oakridge assessment centre will be closed from Dec. 25 until Jan. 3, the Carling assessment centre will remain open with reduced hours.
The assessment centre at the Carling Heights Optimist Community Centre will be open on Christmas Day from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. and from Boxing Day to Jan. 3 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Both centres will return to normal hours of operation on Jan. 4.
Mike McMahon, executive director of the Thames Valley Family Health Team, which operates the centres alongside the London Health Sciences Centre, says the team felt that was a better option than reducing hours at both locations.
“Really, what that does is allows us to consolidate our more-than-full team at Carling so we actually have a little bit of a surge of human resources at Carling,” he explained.
“At the same time, some time off that staff have been requesting — not probably as much as they would like — we get to rotate that through the team.”
As for staff working through the holidays, McMahon says administration is “able to do some socially distant meal service on Christmas Day and or Boxing Day.”
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They’re trying to provide staff “a treat, a measure of comfort, as people are serving others during the annual statutory holiday there,” he says.
TVFHT asks that people book COVID-19 testing appointments online “as much as possible,” though telephone booking is available. The centres also say those without internet or telephone access can still walk up to the centres.
As well, TVFHT says both centres will only test those who fall within provincial guidelines, which includes: those with symptoms, those who’ve been exposed to a confirmed case, those who live or work in a setting experiencing an outbreak, those who require a test (as an essential health worker, for long term care visits, for a medical procedure, etc.), or those who are eligible for testing as part of a Ministry of Health targeted testing initiative.
Further details on testing locations and appointment booking can be found on the COVID-19 testing in London and Middlesex website.
Meanwhile, just because assessment centres are no longer experiencing vehicle line-ups around the block doesn’t mean they’re not busy, McMahon noted. It’s just that now, the line-up is moved online, he says.
“We know that some of the community members are wishing to be tested more quickly than they’re able to get an online booking for, but we are prioritizing those who need urgent testing,” he says.
“The vast majority of people we’re seeing are symptomatic, which is in line with the work we would like to be doing and then making sure we have room daily for the public health, contact-tracing and other priority-level testing that we sometimes don’t even know until noon each day.”
Middlesex-London Health Unit medical officer of health Dr. Chris Mackie says there has been a recent surge in demand for testing, leading to longer waits, which he says delays the knowledge of who has COVID-19 and also could potentially discourage people from getting tested.
As a result, he says the COVID-19 case counts being reported are “lower than what’s actually happening in the community because of that testing delay.”
“The assessment centres are funded through Ontario Health by the provincial government. They’re operated by Thames Valley Family Health Team and London Health Sciences Centre. I know they’re all working as hard as they can,” Mackie said.
“Health human resources are a major challenge right now in terms of the number of people that are required for operations across the health-care system. And so that’s why you’re seeing that crunch there. And unfortunately, the timing isn’t great from the perspective of where we’re at in our case counts right now.”
On Thursday, MLHU reported 58 new COVID-19 cases, breaking the previous daily record of 53 set on Monday and reported again on Tuesday.
— with files from Global News’ Natalie Lovie.
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