{"id":12148,"date":"2020-04-17T16:36:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T20:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/?p=12148"},"modified":"2020-05-21T11:12:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T15:12:33","slug":"t-bay-hospital-lab-to-do-covid-19-testing-to-shorten-nwo-result-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/t-bay-hospital-lab-to-do-covid-19-testing-to-shorten-nwo-result-times\/","title":{"rendered":"T-Bay hospital lab to do COVID-19 testing to shorten NWO result times"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDr. Stewart Kennedy is the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre’s manager for the COVID-19 pandemic. Kennedy says the hospital hopes to help the entire region of Northwestern Ontario if they’re able to test COVID-19 swab samples in the coming weeks. This photo of Kenned was taken in 2012.<\/span>
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPostmedia Network<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n

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The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre hopes to get the lab materials required to test coronavirus swab samples on site for a shorter turnaround time on obtaining the results.<\/p>\n

According to Dr. Stewart Kennedy, the Thunder Bay hospital\u2019s COVID-19 manager, if they succeed in securing test kits and the other items required, they would \u201cabsolutely\u201d accept samples from Kenora and other COVID-19 community assessment centres from across Northwestern Ontario.<\/p>\n

Currently, the Thunder Bay hospital provides COVID-19 screening for individuals with symptoms at its assessment centre. Kennedy said the hospital has the apparatus to perform in-house lab testing; a point-of-care testing system and a new BioFire system.<\/p>\n

Both systems require test kits and reagents, which the hospital is trying to obtain in greater quantities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re struggling for right now,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cIf we had the test kits, we could do just over 360 [tests] a day, with three to four hours of turnaround.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that if the hospital gets the test kits and reagents needed to perform in-house testing, and if they were the only hospital in Northwestern Ontario to provide in-house testing, they would \u201cabsolutely\u201d test samples that come from the Northwestern Health Unit to guarantee a faster turnaround time for all tests conducted in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a service to the region,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cWe want to help out the total region, not just the residents of Thunder Bay.<\/p>\n

Currently, the hospital, like all hospitals in the province, sends their samples to the provincial public health lab in Toronto for testing. Kennedy said the turnaround time for the return of results is two to three days, an improvement from five to nine days two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat still is two to three days too long,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cWe\u2019re putting our health-care workers, we\u2019re putting our patients at risk (without a) more\u2026 timely response to our results.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy said the provincial government is well aware that test turnaround times could be shortened and that the hospital is \u201cconfident\u201d that they\u2019ll make some progress.<\/p>\n

He said that those in the province leading the pandemic response don\u2019t always understand the distance of Northwestern Ontario from testing sites in Toronto and that can be \u201cfrustrating at times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough these pandemics there\u2019s always a learning process,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019re ignoring us. I think they\u2019re dealing with supply issues as the priority, so what I\u2019m trying to do is make this a higher priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy said he expects the Thunder Bay assessment centre will begin to process many more tests than before, as the eligibility criteria has changed. A few weeks ago, it was primarily individuals who were returning travels outside the country that were being tested. As of last week, anyone with flu-like symptoms is eligible for a swab test.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Dr. Stewart Kennedy is the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre’s manager for the COVID-19 pandemic. Kennedy says the hospital hopes to help the entire region of Northwestern Ontario if they’re able to test COVID-19 swab samples in the coming weeks. This photo of Kenned was taken in 2012. Postmedia Network The Thunder Bay Regional…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[120,162,161,157],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16467,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12148\/revisions\/16467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}