Ontario to open COVID-19 assessment centres throughout province

The provincial government has announced that several dedicated COVID-19 assessments centres will open their doors in the coming days.

It’s an effort to expand screening for the virus, also known as coronavirus, and ease pressures on hospital emergency departments.

The first centres set to open are in areas experiencing significant growth in testing including at the Brampton Civic Hospital, The Ottawa Hospital, North York General Hospital, Mackenzie Health in York Region, Scarborough Health Network, and Trillium Health Partners in Peel Region.

The facilities will be located in separate areas to protect other patients from a potential spread of the virus.

“Ontario’s public health system continues to demonstrate remarkable responsiveness to COVID-19,” said Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health in a news release. “While we have so far effectively contained new cases of this virus, we are relentlessly focused on planning for any scenario. We are actively working with our partners at all levels in the health care system to implement enhanced measures to ensure that we are prepared to protect the health of all Ontarians.”

The province says it’s the first wave of such centres and more will be opened across Ontario in the next few weeks.

Ontario has also approved new physician billing codes for telephone assessments, which will enable doctors to do more assessments over the phone rather than in their clinic. The province hopes this will help keep patients at home rather than in primary care settings where they would interact with others.