221 Nelson Street Ottawa, Ontario K1N 1C7 (613) 789-1500 www.shchc.ca
A year in the life of the COVID-19 Testing Clinic - by Derrick St John and Claire Scott
What a year it has been! What a year it has been! We were at 5446 tests and counting as of our birthday on September 28th! It’s hard to capture all the ups and downs throughout the year, but there have been a few moments during the third wave that have stood out. As the demand for testing grew through the start of April 2021, we were tasked with increasing capacity to see as many people as possible for a few weeks. We were able to book almost 100 clients and test 70 people in one day. To do this, we had to refine every aspect of our process. One of the major improvements we made was to actively screen and triage all clients with booked appointments, to ensure everyone who was registered actually fit criteria for testing. As funny as it sounds, some of our best interventions were the people we did not test. Not just because it saved them a swab up the nose, but because we took the
In this issue Highlights from AGM................ 2-3 The CDE Team is growing........... 6 Divisions of responsibility in feeding..................................... 8 Continuous learning.................... 9 Staffing changes................... 10-11 Insomnia blues.......................... 12
time to educate members of our community about how COVID-19 is transmitted and why the incubation period of the virus is relevant to when we test people for COVID. To say it has been all roses and butterflies would be a lie. There were some days during the height of the third wave that our positivity rate was close to 50%. This meant that almost every second person we saw tested positive for COVID-19. This also came at a time where our testing staff had only received one dose of vaccine, so there was some trepidation about exposure to so many people with the virus. It’s hard to remember that, as recently as April, almost no one was “double vaxxed”. We did not just survive through this wave, we thrived. It was amazing to see all the clinic staff working hard, day after day, until the numbers, the cases, and the positivity rates dropped. The “numbers” matter, but for us they are not just numbers. They are people. People in our community, our neighbours, our friends, and the faces that make up the vibrant and diverse Sandy Hill community. Our community is truly a mosaic or, better yet, an innate tapestry with interwoven threads that run parallel at times, but intersect intricately, creating a living and breathing work of art. In a time where so many were locked down and isolated, we saw dozens of people in a day, we cracked jokes, shared a laugh and, at moments, maybe a tear. It was inspiring to see the different teams
Photo courtesy of Bill Juillette
come together and collaborate to ensure the sustainability of this service we offer to our community. Our community partners, specifically at The Ottawa Hospital, EORLA (Eastern Ontario Laboratory Association) and PHOL (Public Health Lab Ontario) have been instrumental in supporting our efforts. They have worked with us to ensure we were able to offer fast and efficient turnaround times with our results, and they continue to collaborate with us to improve our services. Our friends at the Brewer and McNabb Assessment Centres stepped up when a delivery of swabs was delayed due to the lockdown, and provided us with a case of swabs so we could finish our week of testing. Chapeau, my friends! (Continued on page 4)
Awesome Arts 2021................... 13
Working together to make our community healthy Newsletter No. 32 - Winter 2022
