Turnaround time for test results 'problematic,' says Thunder Bay hospital COVID-19 lead
CBC News | Posted: September 28, 2020 3:24 PM | Last Updated: September 28, 2020
Hospital allocated 1,500 COVID-19 test kits per month
The physician heading up the COVID-19 response at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre says while there are efforts to meet the increasing demand for testing, there are issues with the turnaround time waiting for results.
Dr. Stewart Kennedy said he shares the concerns and frustrations many people have about testing capacity, adding the hospital's assessment centre is only allocated 1,500 test kits per month and there are challenges in having enough trained personnel working in the laboratories.
"The back end is still difficult. We can do the testing and reduce our wait list at the assessment centre but then the turnaround time is still problematic," Kennedy said on Monday.
"We have a hastened turnaround time here at the Thunder Bay regional hospital for priority cases, which are health care workers, contacts with long-term care individuals and contact tracing. We do have to send the rest of the results to our public health lab in Thunder Bay. They get overcapacity, then they have to send them to the public health lab in Toronto."
Kennedy said discussions are still ongoing with Thunder Bay boards of education and other local education providers to establish a separate assessment centre for students, teachers and parents.
A site at Confederation College could be confirmed this week, he said.
Over the weekend there were 600 tests, mostly of school-aged children, done in combination by the assessment centre as well as a drive-through testing site at the Thunder Bay District Health Unit by Superior North EMS paramedics.
The first COVID-19 case in a Thunder Bay school was confirmed last week, when a student at Ecole Gron Morgan Public School tested positive.
The Thunder Bay District Health Unit released a letter over the weekend to parents of students at the school, advising that there hasn't been any evidence of spread throughout the school and no further cases have been identified.
Hospital plans to ramp up procedures next month
Kennedy said hospital officials are preparing to increase their surgical and diagnostic capacity to 120 per cent, starting in October.
The hospital needs enough trained personnel to be able to staff a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week schedule, he added.
"It takes more than sometimes six or nine months to train an operating room nurse," Kennedy said, cautioning there will likely be human resources challenges.
Kennedy said the hospital's supply of personal protective equipment and drugs is "good," heading into the fall as cases have been rising steadily across the province.
"We have a strategy to slowly wind down our procedures maybe by 10 per cent at a time, 20 per cent at a time, but not to get to the place we were in April where everything is closed down," Kennedy said, adding COVID-19 will likely be here for "months to years."