COVID Testing in St. James Town

By -

The corner has announced restarting COVID-19 testing again in St James Town. Testing is being carried out by Sherbourne Health Center and is taking place at the St. James Town Community Corner (The Corner), located at 200 Wellesley St. East.

The testing will last from January through March, 2021. It is free of charge and anyone could pop up to do the testing without an appointment.

The results come up within 2-3 days and health professionals are sure to contact those who got positive covid results to inform them, and see if they need any help with staying home in quarantine for 14 days. In addition, The Corner offers multiple wrap up services including gift cards, free meals for those experiencing food insecurity, grocery delivery and information on isolation rooms as well as any kind of financial or medical assistance that residents could be in need of.

This is not the first time The Corner has offered the free pop-up testing clinic during the pandemic. “Public health started last year in October of 2020,” says Dr. Warda Iqbal - the family physician at Sherbourne Health Center. She continues, “we did about 8 weeks at that time then we took a bit of a break around the holidays and now we are back for around 12 weeks”.

“The clinic runs every week. We are here on Tuesdays from 1-5 on and on Fridays from 9-1,” explains Dr. Iqbal. Although the clinic was developed for local residents living in the St.James Town area, they don’t turn anyone away and will still do the testing even if the person is not from the area.

Shova Adhikari, the community Engagement Facilitator at the Corner, explains that one of The Corner’s role is to conduct outreach and promote awareness of necessary information about COVID 19 stating that, “we update the notice boards day to day with information, and we also translate it to different languages that are spoken around St. JamesTown.”

In addition, as part of The Corner’s intake and assessment process, if someone doesn’t have a family doctor, The Corner works in partnership with Sherbourne Health Centre on connecting them to a doctor from the neighborhood, or will give them information about family doctors in their area. “Educating them about the importance of having a family doctor who has a track of their medical history and could help them in the future understanding their health conditions,” explained Nayanthi Wijesuriya, the Intake and Client Engagement Lead for Health Access, at The Corner.

The testing will last till March and Dr. Iqbal encourages anyone who feels unwell or has experienced some of the symptoms or has contacted someone who has positive COVID 19 to visit the Corner and try to get tested as soon as possible. It is also advised to stay home and “isolate after the test until you get the results.” states Dr. Warda.

If you live in St. James Town and want to get tested for Covid-19, drop by The Corner, at 200 Wellesley Street. 

To watch the video:
https://youtu.be/Gc41kjrRhpw


Written by
Nea Maaty

Journalist
FOCUS Media Arts Centre

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Regent Park Portrayed in Film and Television

By -
Image
Toronto has a rich history of being a go-to shooting location for many television and film production companies. Some notable films shot here over the years include Good Will Hunting (1997), Billy Madison (1998), American Psycho (2000), and X-Men (2000). Regent Park has also had its share of showcases in film. This article aims to review the general content of movie dramas and televisions shows shot in Regent and explore their relationship to the community. Clement Virgo is a director, producer, and writer from Montego Bay, Jamaica. He was born in 1966 and moved to the Regent Park area in Toronto in 1977. During this time Regent Park was generally populated by low-income families and as a hot spot for drugs. Virgo is most recently known for his roles in Greenleaf (2016-2018), The Book of Negroes (2015), and The Wire (2002) as Director and/or Producer. His first feature-length film, however, was Rude (1995), which was filmed almost entirely in the old Regent Park. “The film told...
Read more

What Social Inclusion Means to Me

By -
I had moved into Regent Park only a few days before I saw the pink, fuchsia, strawberry, indigo, yellow, green, neck streamers and sparkling robes worn by children, parents, aunts, uncles, and elders as they marched passed my kitchen door. Soon, the nearby Athletic Grounds was blazing with colour. Although it was the first time I heard them, the intonations on the microphone were recognizable, even to me, as prayers. It was Eid, the concluding celebration after Ramadan. It was a beautiful sight. I am a White Jewish senior and I hunted for a stairless condo for years before I chose to live in Regent Park and then only because a relative did business with the new seniors’ building there. “Regent Park?” a friend exclaimed. “You are going to have ethnic problems.”  “Not I.  I come from a long line of fiery leftie activists.” I replied. Stage four and five of revitalizing this post-war subsidized development into a multi-income community was just beginning and I ju...
Read more

Meet Your Neighbourhood Police Officers – PC Mircea Biga and PC Farzad Ghotbi

By -
Image
Community-based policing is a proactive law enforcement strategy that focuses on building ties and working closely with a community’s members to create partnerships and plans for preventing and reducing crime. While community policing will look differently depending on the community it serves, a central feature is that the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis. Currently there are 17 community-based police programs in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), but what most people don’t know is that Toronto’s community policing started in Regent Park in May of 2017. We know this because the original officers involved in setting up the Regent Park community policing program continue to work here today. The officers are PC Mircea Biga, PC Farzad Ghotbi, and PC Edward Parks; the newest officer assigned to the Regent Park community is PC Nigel Thomas (who is replacing PC Melissa Huntley while she is on maternity leave). Symptomatic of the increasing diversity...
Read more