TORONTO -- People seeking COVID-19 tests in the Toronto area this week are reporting hours-long waits at assessment centres, with one mom in Mississauga, Ont. sitting in her car for six and a half hours before getting a test.
Danijela Cabraja told CP24 she arrived at the drive-thru assessment centre at Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga at 8 a.m. Wednesday and was told there was a four hour wait.
Three and half hours later, she was told there would be another four hours of waiting before she could get a test for herself and her 10-year-old daughter, who had throat pain and could not seek her pediatrician's help or diagnosis without a negative test.
"It's endless, I can't see where the assessment centre is from here," she said on the phone while in the line on Wednesday.
Better yet, there was no place for Cabraja or her daughter to go to the bathroom.
"I literally took my kid into the bush to take a leak," she said
After 6.5 hours of waiting, Cabraja said she and her daughter were swabbed and finally went home.
While they await the results so they can finally see a doctor, she says she is outraged at how long the process took.
"I am hoping it comes back negative because this is torture," she said.
"Your plan sucks," Cabraja told CP24 when asked about the Ford government's approach to testing. "It's their job to come up with a plan and it has failed," she said.
Health Minister Christine Elliott said Thursday that testing demand has risen 30 per cent across the province in recent weeks, roughly in lockstep with a nearly 200 per cent increase in the daily reported count of novel coronavirus infections in the province, as well as the return of 1-1.5 million students to schools.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says his government was not caught flat footed by the spike in cases and ensuing demand for tests.
"We weren't caught off guard," he told reporters Wednesday. We had some of the lowest cases – for weeks and literally overnight things increased. We're prepared to get everything ramped up in a matter of days."
But Elliott said a plan to increase the number of tests processed each day from 25,000 to 30,000 per day to 50,000 per day will take "a month or so."
