COVID-19 care clinic coming to Orlans in mid-October

Amid growing calls formore COVID-19 testing in Ottawa's east end, Mayor Jim Watson announced Monday that a care clinic will openat a community centre in Orlans, likely bymid-October.

The COVID-19 care clinic will be located at Ray Friel Recreation Complex and will have a separate entrance to allow recreation programming to continue at the facility, Watson said.

Genevive Picard, a spokesperson for the Montfort Hospital, which willmanagethe new clinic, said the services offered at the Orlans site will be similar to those offered at the Heron Road care clinic.

This summer,Orlans MPP Stephen Blais, along with city councillors Matthew Luloff, Tim Tierney and Laura Dudas, wrote to The Ottawa Hospital's CEO, Cameron Love, asking for an assessment centre in the city's east end.

In early September, a drive-thru test site opened onCoventry Road, just east of downtown, but it only provides in-vehicle tests and patients must be 14 or older.Luloffsaid at the time, it wasn't enough to meet the needs ofresidents inOrlans.

That care clinic, along with the Moodie Drive location, provides patients with testing and treatments for respiratory illnesses. Care clinics are open on weekdaysand are equipped to perform basic diagnostic testinglike chest X-rays and lab testing.

Ottawa's assessment centres, such as the one at Brewer Arena, offer assessments and testing for COVID-19 and have longer operating hours, seven days a week.