An Update about the COVID-19 Assessment Centre, Rolling Hills Drive
Along with many other areas in the province, we continue to see increases in the number of people attending our COVID-19 Assessment Centre. This week has been particularly busy for us and our team has seen over 300 people daily, compared to 175 or so daily in previous weeks. This also means inevitably, people are waiting longer before they are screened, assessed and tested. We have tested over 21 thousand people since we opened our Assessment Centre on March 19.
Safety is our top priority in everything we do. We want to be a respectful neighbour with the residents and businesses in the Rolling Hills Drive area and will do our best to alleviate congestion. As a result, we have added additional traffic control personnel to help manage traffic flow.
Other resources are being added too including additional nursing staff and clerical staff to our Assessment Centre team. Our current hours of operation are 9 am to 5 pm daily, with the last patient seen at 4:30 pm. If the high number of visits continues, we will consider extending the hours and will communicate the change widely.
We are grateful to our community partners who have been flexible and willing to assist us from the beginning when we first opened the Assessment Centre. We are proud of the work we have done together and to be able to provide this valuable service to people in our communities.
As for the future, the assessment centre tent is not ideal for our late fall and winter weather. We are actively planning with our staff and community partners to consider a new location. Our hope is that we can have our plans finalized very soon. We will share information with the public when those decisions are made, well in advance.
Until then, I urge you, on behalf of our staff and partners, to please be patient when you come to the Assessment Centre. These are busy and uncertain times and I understand that people are concerned. Our staff and community partners are doing their very best to ensure everyone is seen in a timely and safe way. We all need to continue doing our part to manage community-spread of COVID-19. Practice physical distancing, wear a mask or face covering and follow public health guidelines.
Thank you for your understanding.
Sincerely,
Kim Delahunt, President & CEO
Headwaters Health Care Centre