Travel plans and Omicron concerns are leading to long lines forming outside the Health Services Authority’s recently-relocated vaccination and testing clinic.
As people require COVID tests before they fly overseas for the Christmas holidays, there has been higher-than-usual demand for travel-related PCR and lateral flow tests. Also, with suspected local transmission of the highly contagious Omicron variant, many are also queuing up for booster shots and vaccinations.
People attending the HSA clinic at 131 MacLendon Drive, behind Foster’s Airport, have reported waiting up to two hours to receive vaccinations or to get tested.
In response to complaints over the wait time, Health Minister Sabrina Turner, on a community WhatsApp chat group in her Prospect constituency, said the matter had been brought to the attention of senior HSA managers.
She said the clinic had experienced “significant patient volumes”, and that the HSA would try to add additional personnel “as quickly as possible to ease the congestion”.
The minister said “registration appears to be the slowest point”, adding that, on Saturday, staff at the clinic had been processing up to 100 people an hour for PCR testing.
“The volumes are significantly high due to demand for travel,” Turner said.
The HSA had been using the Lions Centre for vaccination distribution until mid-November, when it moved to Camana Bay, while its testing facilities had been based at the Cayman Islands Hospital. Earlier this month, it began offering COVID testing and vaccinations at the clinic in MacLendon Drive, at a space that had previously been used as the Department of Children and Family Services’ Older Persons Active Ageing Centre.
The clinic at MacLendon Drive is available for PCR and LFT tests for those testing for travel purposes, general screening and hospital pre-operative admissions, while people requiring testing at the end of quarantine periods should attend one of the three exit-screening centres, at the Bodden Town Civic Centre, South Sound Community Centre and the Ed Bush Sports Complex.
Opening hours for COVID testing
The opening hours for walk-in COVID testing at the MacLendon Drive clinic over the Christmas and New Year period are as follows:
- Christmas Day: 10am to noon
- Boxing Day: 10am to noon
- Monday, 27 Dec: 7:30am to noon
- Tuesday, 28 Dec: 7:30am to noon
- New Year’s Day: 10am to noon
Opening times outside the holiday period are:
- Monday–Friday: 7:30am–noon
- Saturday: 10am–noon
- Sunday: 10am–2pm (10am–noon for PCR, 10am–2pm for certified LFT)
Opening hours for vaccines
The MacLendon Drive clinic will close for vaccinations at 4pm on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
It will also be closed for vaccinations on Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Monday, 27 Dec., Tuesday, 28 Dec., and on New Year’s Day.
Community exit PCR testing
The Bodden Town Civic Centre, South Sound Community Centre and the Ed Bush Sports Complex, which are available to those exiting isolation, are open daily from 10am to noon between 20 Dec. and 10 Jan.
Related Videos
Sabrina Turner said the congestion and long lines at MacLendon Drive has been “brought to the attention of senior HSA Managers”, that says it all. “World class?”.