‘It’s frustrating’: Hamilton man says COVID-19 test result took four days longer than his wife’s

A Hamilton man says he is looking for answers from public health after he received his COVID-19 test results nearly four days after his wife's, even though the pair was tested on the same day, in the same car.

Justin Bos and his wife, Mary, were both tested for the virus on Thursday, May 21, at the Dave Andreychuk Mountain Arena. The recreation centre is home to the city's drive-thru COVID-19 testing centre.

The pair had to get tested because he began showing symptoms of the respiratory virus. He had been having headaches, had developed a sore throat, he was congested and he had a cough, but no fever.

It was still enough to warrant a test and concern for the couple, especially with Mary working in a retirement home in Hamilton where the average resident age is 89.

Bos said one of the measures in place is that if anyone in a retirement home worker's household begins to show symptoms, the entire household must get tested. No worker can return to the job until all family member's results have come back negative.

These people (the residents) are very vulnerable to this," said Bos. They're taking it very seriously there."

Unsettling' experience

When they called public health on May 20, Bos said the couple also alerted officials to his heart condition, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and that Mary was a front-line worker.

With both factors taken into account, they were able to get booked in for a test the next day.

When at the testing facility, Bos said he and his wife were misidentified at least three times, including when staff who were set to test them brought incorrectly labelled tubes to their car window. He likened it to a server messing up a drink order in a restaurant.

Bos said they inadvertently were told who else was getting tested that day.

It's unsettling," said Bos. We were ensured from the moment that we booked the test that this would be a private thing."

In an email to The Hamilton Spectator, Hamilton Family Health Team nursing manager Laurel Turnbull said the family health team takes privacy very seriously and has established processes to ensure that patient privacy is protected at all times."

Turnbull said at the testing centre, nurses identify attendees by viewing their health card. Once the sample is collected a second nurse cross-checks the sample label and requisition to ensure that they are accurate."

She added that the organization has not heard any complaints thus far.

Delay in results

Bos said the pair made it through the uncomfortable" nose swab unscathed and returned home to self-isolate to wait for their results and hope for the best."

Mary received her negative test results back on Sunday, May 24, just three days after their test. But, when Bos checked for his results, none were available. Without his results, Mary was unable to return to work, Bos said.

It's good, but it really didn't help her case at all," he said.

The pair then started making calls to public health, said Bos. They had expected since they were tested at the same time, their results would come in shortly after the other.

According to Kelly Anderson, spokesperson for Hamilton public health, Mary may have received her result quicker because she identified as a health-care worker/essential worker and therefore her specimen would have been directed through the Hamilton Regional Laboratory Medicine Program (HRLMP)."

Anderson said tests from the arena are processed either by the HRLMP or the Public Health Ontario Lab (PHOL). When the Spectator asked about a backlog at the HRLMP, Anderson said Monday they don't believe there is a backlog on tests processed through this lab."

Bos said they called consistently hoping to track down either an estimated time of arrival on his results or at least find out where his test had been sent to.

He said staff were unable to provide him any information on his test whereabouts or an estimated time of arrival on his results. He said one public health worker on the phone told him they were faxing" other labs to see where it was.

Then at around 11:15 a.m. on Thursday, May 28, his negative result came in - just an hour after the seven-day window had passed.

They should have had some kind of set up where this shouldn't be happening," said Bos. We're month two into this (pandemic) ... it's frustrating."

In an email, Ontario Health spokesperson Mitchell Toker said the turnaround time of COVID-19 results varies" across the province, but did note that they can report that the majority of tests are reported within two days."

Toker said the COVID-19 Provincial Diagnostic Network is working to address and learn from cases in which there have been delays in turnaround time so that Ontarians receive COVID-19 test results as soon as possible, regardless of where they live or where the test is performed."

Fallon Hewitt is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach her via email: fhewitt@thespec.com