CALGARY -- AHS says asymptomatic people are not being tested for COVID-19 due to low levels of staffing.
“We’re having a bit of a struggle right now in finding staff assisting in the assessment centres to be able to book all the patients that are calling in and get those appointments booked,” said Mauro Chies, spokesperson with Alberta Health Services.
“What we have done, is AHS has put a call out to all our provincial programs and our acute care centres to look for individuals...so what we’re looking for is to ramp that up significantly, especially in areas that are seeing the highest pressure points.”
The province hopes to administer nearly 20,000 COVID-19 tests per day, but currently are doing between 6,000-10,000 per day.
AHS says it has reached out to bring in more staff.
“We’ve put the call out over the past 48 hours, over the weekend,” said Chies.
“We are already starting to see the staff re-deployed, we’re hoping that all goes well. Hopefully by later in the week, we’ll be able to clear some of that backlog.”
Chies said that with more tests being administered, staff were staying busy.
“Right now we’re very busy with COVID itself and the treatment of the patients.”
Around 600,000 tests have been completed in Alberta since the start of the pandemic.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw said that the AHS online testing tool focuses more on those with symptoms than asymptomatic people.
