With the recent provincial increase in COVID-19 cases, the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is bracing for an uptick locally.
CKHA President and CEO Lori Marshall says the hospital is ready for those trends to spill over to C-K.
“We’ve hired some new staff for our Assessment Centre and are going to be expanding our hours of availability because we do anticipate this is likely going to be a trend in the very near future that volumes are going to likely continue to climb and be higher than they were in the recent past,” Marshall says. “I just want to assure the public we have a plan in place.”
The Health Alliance is also considering finding another facility to house the Assessment Centre to allow for more parking and accessibility.
The Assessment Centre typically sees approximately 100 patients per day. That number increased to over 200 earlier this week, but Marshall says the increase isn’t surprising.
“Some of that is the worried well, who maybe are just thinking they want to come for a test, some if it is related to back to school,” Marshall says. “Unfortunately sniffles are out there and those kinds of things, and sometimes it’s hard to distinguish.”
The Health Alliance recommends booking online at www.assessmentbooking.ca if you can.
