Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre has added a second portal to make it easier for those needing to book an appointment for a COVID-19 test.
On Friday, the provincial government announced that assessment centres would only be open for appointments, discontinuing walk-in testing services. According to RVH officials, the move has helped them to improve wait times locally.
Previously, the RVH assessment centre offered half of their daily visits by appointment.
“As a result of Friday’s announcement, starting Sunday morning at 6 a.m., we opened up a same-day portal,” said Stella Johnson, operations director of emergency, intensive care and the COVID-19 Test Clinic.
Johnson oversees the new Sperling Drive Assessment Centre.
“Every morning we release 300 appointments for the same day. We also offer an additional 100 appointments by phone for the same day,” she said.
If you need to get tested but aren’t sure if you should be booking through the same-day or future appointment portal, Johnson says you should ask yourself a few questions.
“If people need to come... for something they can predict or is routine like if they’re travelling, visiting or working in long-term care, they should be booking through the future portal,” said Johnson. “If they wake up and require a swab the same day, for example if their child meets the criteria, that would be a same-day patient.”
On Monday, the same-day appointments were booking about an hour and a half out. The future appointment option was booking for Wednesday.
While people who are advised to get a test later in the day are less likely to get a same-day appointment time and may have to wait until the morning, Johnson said, overall, the new process is more streamlined.
“Overall, it has had a significant improvement in our wait times. Today, we have a one hour and 40 minute wait time, whereas before (with drop-ins), the wait time was about three hours last week.”
The benefit of moving to an appointment-only model is people attending the centres have a guarantee they will be tested.
Test results are provided by the provincial government on their website here.
As of Monday, Johnson said wait times for results are between two and four days, an improvement from last week, when wait times for results were pushing five days.
“They’re going down,” said Johnson.
To book your appointment or to see current appointment availability at the RVH Assessment Centre on Sperling Drive, click here.
