Chatham-Kent mother of immunocompromised daughter anxious about access to COVID tests
A Chatham-Kent woman who has an adult daughter who's immunocompromised says she's concerned that COVID-19 tests have become difficult to access, and she's frustrated by what she feels is poor communication from the province about how to access them.
Wendy Van Torre says it's not impossible to find a test kit, but she has had to call numerous pharmacies, drive across the border and rely on help from family and friends to procure them.
And she blames the Ministry of Health for failing to keep health-care providers and the public in the loop about how people can get tested.
"I would like to see them improve their communication," she said.
"I'd like them to restore the availability of RAT [rapid antigen tests] — free or for sale."
Van Torre's daughter Amy lives with Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel disease that is frequently treated with immunosuppressants and biologic drugs such as Infliximab (Remicade), which also suppress immune response.
Family wants to take precautions
People who are immunocompromised typically do not receive the same benefit from vaccines as immunocompetent people do, and they are at increased risk of severe illness.
Because of this, Van Torre's family members want to be able to test for COVID-19 before they spend time with Amy, so they know if they're infected with the virus — even if they don't have symptoms — and can stay away from her to protect her.
Van Torre also wants to be sure that Amy will have rapid access to testing if she ever becomes ill because she'd need to quickly confirm a COVID infection in order to benefit from treatment with Paxlovid, an anti-viral medication recommended for those at higher risk from the illness.
"It only works in the first five days of symptoms," Van Torre said. "The clock starts ticking on those five days."
Van Torre tried to buy rapid antigen tests on Amazon but found none for sale in Canada, she said.
Wendy Van Torre, right, and her daughter, Amy. Wendy said her family wants to be able to test before visiting with Amy to make sure they don't expose her to COVID. (Submitted by Wendy Van Torre)
Next, she called Chatham-Kent Public Health and was told they didn't know of any places she could get the tests either.
CK Publc Health confirmed to CBC that it does not have COVID tests on hand and is not aware of any providers in town currently providing them.
Finally, Van Torre said, she called her MPP, Trevor Jones, who sent her a link to a provincial website that helps people locate facilities offering PCR tests to eligible patients.
Van Torre phoned 30 pharmacies and labs across southern Ontario whose names appear on the list, informing each one that her daughter is a member of a high-risk group and asking if they had rapid antigen tests on hand, she said.
Province following test-to-treat policy
She found only five that did — three of which were selling the tests and two of which were providing them free to members of vulnerable groups in accordance with provincial policy.
The province has adopted a so-called test-to-treat policy, under which it continues to provide publicly funded rapid antigen tests through participating pharmacies and primary care providers but only to individuals who have COVID-19 symptoms and who are at increased risk of severe illness, according to Hannah Jensen, a spokesperson for the Minister of Health.
Its definition of those at increased risk includes people who are 65 or older, people who are immunocompromised, and people with at least one medical condition that increases their risk from COVID — such as chronic lung, kidney or liver disease, cancer or certain heart conditions, according to a ministry website.
The province has no control over decisions by individual retailers to stock tests for sale to the general public, Jensen noted.
Van Torre, who is over 65, said she was unaware that some primary care providers were providing tests until CBC informed her of Jensen's message, but she quickly discovered that hers was not one of them.
She also noted that many people can't get in to see a primary care provider on short notice, even in an emergency.
In addition, she said, she's concerned that the government is only offering testing to people who are symptomatic – not to friends or family members of vulnerable people — because people need to know before they show signs of illness if they pose a threat to their at-risk loved ones.
CBC put Van Torre's concerns to Jensen, the minister's spokesperson, but she did not directly respond to them.
CBC Windsor made its own effort to locate rapid antigen tests, calling and visiting six pharmacies in October looking for the kits, but it couldn't find any. Multiple online retailers were also sold out, and a test sold by Shoppers Drug Mart would take up to five days to arrive.
CBC also contacted the two Windsor-area PCR testing providers listed on the government's website and discovered that one of them is no longer providing testing of any kind.
That leaves The Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy on Huron Church Road.
It is offering both PCR and rapid antigen tests to eligible people under the provincial program, said Rasha Mohamed, the pharmacist and pharmacy owner.
Windsor pharmacy offering PCR and rapid testing to eligible people
The PCR tests are processed in London, and results typically take at least 48 hours, Mohamed said.
So if time is tight, she will also administer a rapid antigen test.
"I had a patient come in maybe two weeks ago, and she came for the PCR test. But she [had] symptoms for two days," Mohamed said.
"We gave her the rapid test, and it turned out to be positive…. And then I wrote her the [Paxlovid] prescription, and she got it."
Mohamed has had no trouble accessing testing supplies from the government in a timely fashion, she added.
She hands out around five rapid test kids a week, she said, and demand for them has increased, while demand for PCR testing has decreased.
The clinical lead for Ontario Health told CBC's Windsor Morning he was surprised that people have been having trouble accessing tests because one of the tenets of public health is to make it easy for people to do what they need to do to protect themselves.
"Certainly for higher risk groups especially, this is a test that has value," said Dr. Fahad Razak, who grew up in Windsor.
"This is still an illness that is spreading unpredictably. …And so I think the idea people protect themselves can be still part of the story while we acknowledge that things are significantly better than they once were."