'High level of demand' with Covid test appointments hard to come by in Cork

CORK Kerry Community Healthcare (CKCH) has confirmed that there is currently “a very high level of demand for tests” across all of its test centres in Cork and Kerry.

It comes as there have been no Covid-19 testing appointments available to book online over the last number of days.

A spokesperson for CKCH told The Echo: “We are doing everything possible to provide extra appointments, and we are now carrying out in excess of 2,600 tests every day.

“We are still aiming to provide tests within 24 to 36 hours, but there may be occasions when it’s not possible to book an appointment online. If you have symptoms, we encourage you to contact your GP.” 

In a statement, the HSE said it has consistently carried out more than 20,000 tests per day over the last week with Tuesday, November 16 its busiest day to date in community testing with over 25,000 appointments offered in test centres.

The community testing service was established initially to support the delivery of 15,000 tests per day. The service now has a number of additional measures which we have implemented to increase that daily testing figure for peak periods to 20,000 tests per day.

“Our priority is to make sure GPs can refer patients for Covid-19 PCR testing where they feel it is warranted, and that close contacts of confirmed cases who are identified as requiring a Covid-19 PCR test get their test appointment as quickly as possible. Ensuring these two groups are prioritised does mean that those outside these categories may not be able to book a test until the following day.

“In recent days it has been particularly busy in test centres across the country, however, we monitor test appointment slots continually throughout the day and slots often do become available later in the day or the following day,” the statement read.

PRIVATE TESTING PROVIDER

The HSE said it has been working on plans to further increase the volume of Covid-19 testing it can provide to communities with an agreement in place with private testing provider RocDoc to operate a testing centre on the HSE’s behalf at Dublin airport.

It is planning to open similar testing centres which will be operated by RocDoc at Cork and Shannon airports and it is expected that these further test centres will be operational over the next two weeks.

Additional staff are also being recruited to the HSE Community Test Centres with work being done to put further additional external resources in place to increase testing capacity including potentially other private service providers.

Speaking at the latest HSE briefing on Thursday afternoon, HSE chief Paul Reid said: “Look at the level we are at. We’re at one of the highest capacity levels in comparison to many other European countries.

“If you remember the date at the start of Covid, can we get to 100,000, when will we get to 100,000, we scaled and surged up to that.

“198,000 lab tests in the last seven days, so this is a phenomenal rate we are at and it is because the virus is so rampant now in the communities so we will be saying to people you can get slots and keep looking at it and particularly symptomatic and prioritisation through GPs but there have been occasions and there may be occasions where you may have to wait, and if you have to wait and you’re symptomatic it’s really important you stay at home.

“But the delays have been minimal in terms of the scale that we have stepped up. There is a point at which you can step up this capacity any further of which it adds certain value into the system but we have done that, we have doubled our capacity from 100,000 to 200,00 throughout this Covid,” he said.