Testing delays leave Portage workers to face long waits

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This article was published 03/12/2020 (1927 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Essential workers in Premier Brian Pallister’s hometown of Portage la Prairie are waiting days — sometimes weeks —for their COVID-19 test results.

That’s prompted anxiety and a hesitancy to even get tested, workers told the Free Press, while public health officials wouldn’t reveal the reasons for the delays.

One essential employee, who works at a Portage la Prairie jail and asked not to be named, came into contact with the virus in late October. She was tested shortly afterwards but had to wait nine days — isolated from her family and without pay — to receive her negative result.

“In the nine days that I had to wait for my test results, I had to be locked in my room because I didn’t know if I was COVID-positive or not. I had to isolate from my entire family,” the corrections officer said Thursday. 

Public health told her the test may have been taken too early and she was advised to be tested again. It took another six days for her to get a second negative result.

By the time she returned work, she had spent 15 days away from her job. All that time, she worried she was putting her family and others at risk.

During that period, she said, her family was not required to self-isolate, so her two children attended school.

“It’s just that unsettling feeling: am I putting my children at risk? Are they putting others at risk with me potentially being positive?” she said. 

Another front-line worker said her family waited 13 days for her child’s test result, after the child was swabbed at the Portage Dynacare site. It came back negative.

“I’ve never heard anybody take that long. They said seven days is the max when I called to figure out what’s going on,” she told the Free Press.

The frontline worker said her two children and partner were required to self-isolate. After the first week of self-isolation, given the worker had no symptoms, she returned to work with personal protective equipment as per public health exemptions.

A teacher told the Free Press Thursday she waited six days for results after being tested at the Portage hospital site, which is rumoured to have faster results. 

Portage workers say the long wait times have dissuaded others from getting tested. Warnings on social media urge residents not to get tested at the Dynacare site. 

The corrections officer said she has heard several community members decided to self-isolate without getting tested.

“I think some people have the mentality that maybe we’ll just self-isolate until we’re symptom-free,” she said.

When the essential worker parent asked about a delay for her child’s test result, she was told there was a “glitch” in the system and there have been backlogs in Portage.

The corrections officer said she was told there was “no rhyme or reason” for the delay.

On Thursday, chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said he could not give specifics about delays in Portage, but noted the provincial median wait time is 55 hours.

A spokesperson for public health said Thursday that testing capacity has been expanded “in general” over the last month, and noted “timelines for COVID-19 test results may vary due to current testing volumes and the testing location. It takes a matter of days for COVID-19 test results to become available.” 

—with files from Maggie Macintosh

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jsrutgers