Drive-thru COVID-19 testing arrives in Dartmouth
Posted May 4, 2020 05:53:00 PM.
Those who go to one COVID-19 testing centre in Dartmouth won't need to get out of their cars.
That's because business owner Darren Godbout helped design a drive-thru testing centre for the Dartmouth General Hospital.
“We thought the best approach would be putting it into a storage container and setting it up so, with the different weather, the workers would be comfortable performing the swabs,” he told NEWS 95.7's The Sheldon MacLeod Show.
Godbout's business, Advantage Food Equipment, is close to the hospital.
“It's not too far away from our building so we ran some wires out there and plumbing,” he added. “We got the power hooked up and the water, and had the drainage in place already with what was going on at the construction site. It was pretty easy to do.”
Dr. Todd Howlett is the interim executive medical director of the Nova Scotia Health Authority's central zone.
He said allowing people to stay in their vehicles gives staff an extra layer of safety.
“When we're doing swabs, our staff have to be in something we call PPE, personal protective equipment,” Howlett explained. “Having somebody in a car allows us to be more efficient in our PPE and there's a higher efficiency in how many people we can get through the site.”
“Darren has been extraordinarily generous because he did this using his own staff, his own money and he in fact donated it to the Nova Scotia Health Authority.”
Howlett said there's also a drive-thru testing site in the northern zone and another in the western zone, but he thinks the Dartmouth design could be expanded to more locations throughout the province.
Nova Scotians need to get an assessment through 811 before heading to a COVID-19 testing centre.
