Quinte Health Care is taking steps to be able to perform COVID-19 tests in hospital by summer’s end if not earlier.
QHC CEO Mary Clare Egberts says equipment has been ordered and the organization has received a laboratory licence to perform the tests.
Egberts says the advantage of in house testing is that patient’s results will be available in around two hours. Currently results can take eight hours to 48 hours or longer.
The ability to do COVID-19 testing on site is one of several conditions that Quinte Health Care has to meet before it can resume performing elective surgeries again.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 assessment centres in the region are very busy. Since the provincial government lifted restrictions on who could be tested for the virus Friday, the numbers of people visiting the centres has quadrupled.
