Maya McFadden Photo
Amid growing demand, Fair Haven Community Health Care (FHCHC) moved its Covid-19 testing operation Thursday to 293 East St., a .6‑mile walk from the former testing site on Grand Avenue.
Between walk-ups and appointments, FHCHC test about 300 patients a day.
The 293 East St. property is a storage site for The Greater New Haven Water Pollution Control Authority (GNHWPCA) that has since been cleared out for FHCHC to use the larger space. GNHWPCA Chief Financial Officer Gabriel Varca and GNHWPCA Executive Director Sid Holbrook offered FHCHC the building to expand testing capabilities and offer spacious indoor testing (with room for social distancing) as the weather gets colder.
Last month GNHWPCA reached out to FHCHC to get its staff tested.
“They were jammed against walls and had leaky tents, so we said maybe we can help,” said Holbrook.
GNHWPCA offered two solutions: use of its training facility or its storage building for testing. After a walk-through, FHCHC decided the large and airy storage building would best suit a winterized testing site.
The new site is a short walk down Grand Avenue from where FHCHC’s testing began. A location that has an “abundance of on-street parking” and is easily accessible from bus lines were huge determining factors for the new testing site, said FHCHC Director of Marketing and Development Karen Nemiah.
At the Grand Avenue site FHCHC could permit only one medical swabber indoors. Later a second swabber was brought on board to test patients outdoors under a tent provided by the Connecticut Army National Guard Recruiting.
“We scrunched in a second one because the demand tripled in a month,” said Nemiah.
The FHCHC team considered using both locations as separate sites for walk-ups and appointments, said Chief Medical Officer Benjamin Oldfield. To avoid confusion for visitors, the team decided to keep test to one site, now at 293 East St.
Shakinah Flowers (pictured) is a health care worker who has to get tested every two weeks. Flowers lives around the corner from the testing site, so she decided to use her day off Thursday to get tested for work.
The new testing facility is equipped with indoor heaters and two swabbers with enough space for a hire third if needed.
Walk-ups are welcome for testing Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m.-3 p.m. Additional hours are available by appointment by calling 203 – 871-4179. Paitents should bring a photo ID and do not need proof of insurance.
Paitents who get tested can receive their results via text, phone call, or MyChart. The wait for lab results for each patient depends on the demand at the time, typically ranging from two to five days.
Jessica, 35 got tested alongside her 2‑year-old daughter Thursday after her daughter developed a fever on Thanksgiving. “It was just us two for Thanksgiving, and we’ve been quarantining since,” she said.
Latron Norris, 21, a chef at Quinnipiac University, walked up and got tested Thursday to play it safe after working in a small, crowded space.
Norris (pictured above) said the kitchen staff at his job has decreased recently but at one point required about eight workers to be in a small space for hours.
Others who waited in line said they came to get tested Thursday due to using public transportation frequently, for work, and after traveling.
Thank you to GNHWPCA for stepping up and providing a satisfactory new testing site and the FHCHC for taking into consideration the distance from their previous testing site as well as the bus lines to make the new location not only comfortable for its healthcare workers and able to accommodate increased testing, but also the ease and convince of the clients to be tested.
This is a wonderful example of problem solving, cooperation and using your noggin for the best possible solution for everyone involved.