The Terrace Bay and Marathon COVID-19 assessment centres will be closing at the end of the month as the province is adopting a new approach to assess and treat flu-like illnesses.
The North of Superior Health Care Group announced via a Facebook post this week that the centres will be closing on March 31.
North of Superior Healthcare Group CEO Adam Brown said the decision came with use of the centres decreasing coupled with the end of provincial funding for the centre.
“We've been operating assessment centres in both Marathon and Terrace Bay since near the beginning of the pandemic to allow us, of course, to provide testing services and treatment services for those potentially impacted by COVID,” he said.
“And as the pandemic has evolved, of course the incidence of COVID in our region dramatically decreased and our volumes in our assessment centers have essentially gone away and with funding ending March 31.”
While the centres are closing at the end of the month, Brown would like to assure the region that testing for COVID-19 will still be available to those who require it.
“For those patients that are symptomatic or feel they're symptomatic and may have COVID, there is still testing available through their primary care clinics,” he said.
“So, your local family doctor and if you are having to attend the hospital in Terrace Bay, Marathon, or any other community for that matter, our local physicians and nurses will determine whether testing is required and we can handle that need in-house.”
To minimize the risk of contracting an infection when accessing facilities, Brown said that additional infection prevention and control measures recommended by public health will be implemented.
“So, we're maintaining our masking policy within our building, so, anybody that enters our building would be required to put on a fresh medical grade mask that's available at our front entrance, I believe our clinics in all of our communities are maintaining the same policy,” he said.
“Internally, our staff and our physicians are continuing to require to complete rapid antigen testing, RAT testing several times per week, so, we're making sure we protect ourselves by having good knowledge of any COVID within our buildings and RAT tests are widely available.”
For more information about healthcare services, visit the North of Superior Healthcare Group website.
