MHA calls on provincial government to provide free COVID-19 rapid tests

As Newfoundland and Labrador moves away from PCR testing forCOVID-19, one MHA is asking if the decision not to make rapid tests more widely availableis a budgetary one.

Duringa media briefing Friday, Chief Medical Officer of Health Janice Fitzgerald said restricting PCR testing to vulnerable populations was necessary in order for the province's health-care system to return to normal.

"Health-care staff have been redeployed to COVID swabbing and bookings for two years now," she said. With up to 2,000 tests being processed every day, Fitzgerald said, it's time for laboratories to "refocus."

"We have to refine the approach to testing to ensure it is used in the most appropriate way possible," she said.

PCR testing is limited to household contacts, non-household contacts with symptomsand those with symptoms who are at an increased risk of severe disease, live or work in congregate setting, or deal directly with patients.

Those who are excluded from these categories have few options other than buying a rapid test out of pocket.

Situation 'obviously concerning,' saysMHA

While Fitzgerald said threemillion rapid tests have been distributed to the community through schools, health-care centres, congregate living facilities, corrections services and more, Independent MHA Paul Lane saidthe province should be paying to make them available to everyone.

"When we eliminate an option like PCR testing to control this virus, it's obviously concerning to me," he said.

Lane said his constituents in Mount Pearl-Southlandshave been complaining about the cost of rapid tests. One in particular,he said,spent $240 on them in a single month.

Lane said residents of other provinces don't have to worry about the cost.

"Every other province in the country is providing rapid tests free of charge to the general public," he said.

"We're all one country we should be treated equally and fairly."

Lane wonders whether other provinces have kept the supply stocked by supplementing federal contributions themselves.

"If that's what it is," he said, "then the minister needs to come out and tell the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that every other province is supplementing their supply, and we're not, because of budgetary reasons."

Tests should be used in 'most effective way possible'

While there's no shortage of rapid tests in the province, said Fitzgerald, what's most important is that they be used effectively.

"What other jurisdictions have found when it's just been sort of open and available to everyone, the tests get depleted very quickly and they're not being used necessarily in the most effective way possible," she said.

"Right now we are using tests for symptomatic people in the general population, and we've had that in our school programs."

Despite restrictions to testing eligibility and the elimination of contact tracing, Fitzgerald said, the province still has plenty of ways to detect the degree of COVID-19 spread.

"It's not everybody getting tested, but at this point, we can still monitor things quite well without needing to know every single case that's in the province," she said.

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