It's Been A Month Since Peterborough Area Had An Active Case Of Covid-19
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Peterborough Blogs
Drive-Through COVID-19 Testing At Kinsmen Centre To Continue Until Further Notice
/Peterborough Paramedics, Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) and Peterborough Public Health have announced that the drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic at the Kinsmen Civic Centre will continue to operate weekly from Monday to Friday until further notice.
Photo courtesy PRHC
Here are the changes in hours and other key info you need to know:
Until Friday, July 24th, the drive-through clinic at the Kinsmen Civic Centre for residents without symptoms will continue to operate from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday to Friday.
Starting Monday, July 27th, the hours will change to 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The clinic will continue to be open Monday to Friday.
Testing is provided on a first-come, first-served basis. Please note that children under one year old will not be swabbed at this clinic and should be referred to their family healthcare provider for testing. This clinic is regularly evaluated and may adjust operations based on demand.
Those wishing to be tested on the weekend (with or without symptoms) can call the COVID-19 Assessment Centre at PRHC at 705-876-5086 to book an appointment. The PRHC Assessment Centre runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, seven days a week, by appointment only.
Bring your Ontario Health Card with you. You can access your testing results using your Ontario Health Card number on the provincial online portal here.
For more information about COVID-19, click here.
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Here Are The New Hours For The Kinsmen Drive Through COVID-19 Testing Clinic
/UPDATED POST (June 19th):
Peterborough Paramedics, Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) and Peterborough Public Health announced today that the drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic at the Kinsmen Civic Centre will continue from Monday, June 22 to Friday, June 26 until further notice.
Those wishing to be tested on the weekend (with or without symptoms) can call the COVID-19 Assessment Centre at PRHC at 705-876-5086 to book an appointment. The PRHC Assessment Centre operates by appointment only from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily, seven days a week.
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ORIGINAL POST
Hours of operation are changing for the drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic at the Kinsmen Civic Centre.
The drive-through clinic at the Kinsmen Civic Centre for residents without symptoms will operate from Monday to Friday only from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and continue until at least Friday, June 19th. This clinic is regularly evaluated and may adjust operations based on demand.
Those wishing to be tested on the weekend (with or without symptoms) can call the COVID-19 Assessment Centre at PRHC at 705-876-5086 to book an appointment. The PRHC Assessment Centre operates by appointment only from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily, seven days a week.
Photo courtesy PRHC
One-day drive-through COVID-19 testing clinics continue throughout the County of Peterborough until June 17th. For a list of upcoming clinics, visit peterboroughpublichealth.ca and click on the link for Testing.
Testing clinics are led by the Peterborough Paramedics with support from PRHC, the City of Peterborough, the County of Peterborough and Peterborough Public Health. Remember to bring along your Ontario Health Card with you.
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The Future Canadian Canoe Museum Build Impacted By Environmental Contamination
/The Canadian Canoe Museum (CCM) has announced that the results of its own independent investigations confirm that the designated site for the future building of the new Canadian Canoe Museum has been found to contain an industrial solvent, the chemical compound trichloroethylene (TCE).
The ground water at 353 Hunter Street East, owned by Parks Canada, is believed to have been contaminated by chemicals seeping from an adjacent property. The 83,400 square-foot facility museum was to be located alongside the Peterborough Lift Lock on the Trent-Severn Waterway.
“All of us at the Canoe Museum, our project partners and supporters, are highly concerned and extremely disappointed by the situation,” says Carolyn Hyslop, executive director, The Canadian Canoe Museum, in a media release.
The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) this week issued a Provincial Officers Order, under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA), to the owner at an adjacent property directing it to undertake air quality, ground water and additional onsite investigations and to provide associating remediation plans.
“We are working with all parties including the MECP, Parks Canada and our community and funding partners to evaluate the overall impacts of these findings to our operations and our new museum build,” adds Hyslop.
“While the full implications of this environmental interruption are not yet fully known, we are fully committed to building a new world-class museum that will deliver on its vision and serve the needs of its patrons and local community while honouring and preserving this unique cultural asset of national significance.”
A Canadian Canoe Museum representative tells PTBOCanada in an email that they are “evaluating the situation to understand the full impacts to its operations and future new museum build, and further announcements will be made once a direction has been determined.”
[UPDATE: The Canoe Museum representative clarifies to us in a subsequent email that “testing was undertaken as part of the regular environmental assessments required for any build project. The museum relied on experts and consultants to do this testing and to provide the necessary reporting. The results reported today are the outcome of recent independent testing undertaken by the museum confirming the presence of the industrial solvent.”]
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How To Watch Out For Ticks In The Area This Spring
/Now that Spring has arrived and you actually have the time to start working in the gardens, be extra vigilant this year to check yourself and family (pets included!) for ticks.
These little insects hide in your leaf litter to survive the winter, and if you’re bitten by one, there is a chance they can pass on a wide variety of diseases, the most prevalent being Lyme disease (check out this great article from Peterborough Health to learn more).
CHECK OUT THIS HANDY APP
There is a handy app called eTick (developed here in Canada) to help you identify and report ticks. You can also use it to see if there have been any sightings in your area. Looking at the green dots on the map pictured above, sadly you can see ticks have already been reported in almost every part of Peterborough this year alone!
Stay safe, and make sure you wear long clothing, use insect repellent containing DEET, check yourself over when you get back inside (be sure to look closely, they are pretty tiny!) and if you find one… remove it properly.
—by Evan Holt, PTBOCanada.com
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Paramedic Takeout Program: DBIA and Y Drive PTBO Collaborate To Feed Isolating Paramedics
/Contactless food delivery from downtown restaurants is now available to Peterborough City-County Paramedics isolating from their friends and families at the Holiday Inn Waterfront, thanks to a new Paramedic Takeout Program by the Peterborough Downtown Business Improvement Area and Y-Drive PTBO.
“The Downtown Business Improvement Area is delighted to be working with the Peterborough City-County Paramedics to feed our front-line workers,” says Terry Guiel, Executive Director of the DBIA. “We have a bounty of amazing restaurants for our paramedics to choose from while in isolation. Food is the most basic form of comfort and we are so incredibly pleased to be spreading a little joy to our isolating paramedics at this time.”
“Along with the DBIA’s Paramedic Takeout Program administrative support, we now have a beautifully designed takeout menu with a plethora of options made specifically for our paramedics,” adds Peterborough County Warden, J. Murray Jones. “Our Paramedics do so much for us. It is so great to provide this for them, and at the same time contribute to local businesses.”
Photo courtesy DBIA
The Peterborough City-County Paramedics set aside funds for meals and accommodation to support the Paramedics through isolation. “Our paramedic team is giving all they’ve got and it’s our responsibility to accommodate them in these uncertain times,” adds PCCP Chief Randy Mellow. “We are very grateful to the DBIA, the downtown restaurants, Y Drive and the Holiday Inn for helping us look after them.”
Y Drive PTBO—a local app-based delivery service—stepped up to support the takeout program, providing free delivery for any participating restaurant unable to deliver foodstuffs themselves.
“Now, more than ever, we need to support our front-line workers—offering free delivery through this program allows Y Drive PTBO to give back to those who are working hard to safeguard our community health,” say Rob Davidson and Erica Young, co-owners and operators of Y Drive PTBO.
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Harco Enterprises Ltd. In Peterborough Receives Expedited Health Canada Approval To Produce PPE
/On Friday (May 1st), Maryam Monsef, Member of Parliament for Peterborough-Kawartha, announced that Harco Enterprises Ltd. in Peterborough has received approval by Health Canada to manufacture and distribute a COVID-19 Medical Device (Harco Face Shield).
With the approval, Harco Enterprises are currently able to produce 2,000 components per day and looking for options to be flexible depending on what the demand is in the days and weeks ahead.
“Through our government’s Plan to Mobilize Industry to fight COVID-19, we have been supporting local businesses so they can quickly scale up production or re-tool their manufacturing lines to develop needed products right here at home,” says Monsef. “We are stronger together, and businesses like Harco who are stepping up to help at a time when it’s most needed shows the character of our community.”
“Through the media we had seen that the 3D printing community were printing headbands for a face shield—we thought we could make injection mold tooling to produce similar components,” says Terry Harris, Vice President of Harco Enterprises Ltd. “We decided on a popular open source design being used, then from a sample our team created a mold for a head band and strap, and coupled it with a clear shield. After showing this to Peterborough Regional Health Centre, they had faith in us and this item, and placed an order.”
Harris noted that from the beginning of the project, Harco Enterprises Ltd. reached out to the business community and received a tremendous response and networking support from Peterborough Kawartha Economic Development, the Kawartha Manufacturers Association, and many others. They were able to collaborate with Dan Baily at Merit Precision, Mark Bateman and Mike Shafer at Ventra Plastics, as well as engaged Jeff Pinkney who was instrumental in helping obtain the Health Canada license.
If there are any clinics, hospitals or long-term care facilities that are in need of face shields, Harco Enterprises Ltd. is asking that you reach out to them by email sales@harco.on.ca or by calling 705-743-5361.
If you are a manufacturer looking to produce PPE equipment, reach out to MP Monsef’s office at Maryam.Monsef@parl.gc.ca.
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Fleming College Creates Face Shield Parts For Frontline Workers At 3D Makerspace In Innovation Cluster
/Fleming College has been working out of its downtown 3D Makerspace, located in the Innovation Cluster’s downtown Peterborough incubator, to create headbands and reinforcement pieces for face shields.
These will be given to frontline healthcare workers in the Peterborough region.
HOW THE INITIATIVE STARTED
The initiative began on April 3rd, when Fleming College delivered headbands to the Peterborough PPE Initiative, a group of Peterborough makers who are creating personal protective equipment.
This group, which is led by Fleming College graduate Dylan Radcliffe, have been creating face shields using PETG sheets, plastic brackets, and elastic material, made possible by the Makerspace's 3D printers.
“We are very proud to work with our community partners at Innovation Cluster to support this initiative and produce pieces that create much-needed resources to keep our frontline workers safe,” says Fleming College President Maureen Adamson.
Fleming College’s School of Trades & Technology faculty Fereydoon Diba, with support from Operations Manager Mary MacLeod and Computer Science Technologist Phillip Chee, supported the group by creating more than 500 bottom reinforcement pieces for face shields in the Makerspace.
The donation was made on April 16th and the Peterborough PPE Initiative will assemble and sanitize the face shields, which will be used at PRHC.
“When Fleming College decided to open the 3D Makerspace in the incubator months ago, we knew the hands-on learning environment would be important but now we know it is essential," says John Gillis, President of the Innovation Cluster. "The incubator has always been home to important technological advancements and we are excited that even though startups are unable to physically complete their work in the space due to COVID-19, it is still being used to create and make a difference.”
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A View From The Road: Peterborough Paramedic Kelly Convery On Her Experience Being On Front Lines During This Pandemic
/In the fourth installment of a PTBOCanada series on the experiences of frontline healthcare workers in Peterborough produced by Mary Zita Payne, Peterborough County/City paramedic Kelly Convery gives us a firsthand look on what it’s like being on the frontlines during the pandemic. Here is her experience in her own words…
March 8, 2020. I was at home, a typical Sunday family day.
March 9, 2020. My first day returning to work from maternity leave, starting my retraining process.
March 11, 2020. A pandemic was declared.
My name is Kelly Convery and I have been a paramedic with Peterborough County/City Paramedics since 2009. This is a job I had wanted to pursue since elementary school. This is the job that I believe I was meant to do. This is the job I am proud to do, but this isn’t the same job it once was.
Starting a shift, you never know what your day/night will bring. We don’t know if it will be quiet with stable patients or extremely busy with critically ill patients. We don’t know where our calls will be—they could be from a house in the west end of town or to a remote cottage in Apsley. We have a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability in our job. Uncertainty is something I would say we are familiar and even comfortable with.
Kelly with her baby, Ava, and husband, Ian (photographed by Mary Zita Payne)
Fast forward to April 6, 2020. My first shift back on the road after re-training. I have never felt this level of uncertainty. Our medical directives and policies/procedures are being rewritten faster than we can read. The cognitive overload is real. Our management is working tirelessly to keep us up to date, educated, informed, and safe.
I feel as though my first step back into work is a dive into rapid waters. We are all trying to stay afloat. We are clinging onto what information we know and swimming the rapids. We are striving for perfection. We make sure every square inch of our ambulance is disinfected, multiple times per shift. We make sure we have our gowns, gloves, surgical masks, N95 masks, goggles, face shields, and tyvek suits ready for each call, in case our patient screens positive for COVID 19.
Kelly and Ava (photographed by Mary Zita Payne)
We make sure we apply this PPE appropriately. We make sure we take it off appropriately. In between, we make sure we are providing the best possible care to our patients. We typically meet our patients and have 15 +/- minutes to understand their full medical history, why they called 911, and what the most appropriate treatment is for them.
That 15 minutes is reduced to 1 minute when we are met with a critically ill patient. In the back of our minds, we are processing our PPE choices, our negative or positive COVID screening choice, our patient’s presentation, their medical history, the interventions needed, and their transportation to the hospital. It’s a lot.
I find myself cycling between fear and faith in these moments. I can’t seem to stay in one spot. I fear for the health and safety of my daughter and husband. I fear I will inevitably bring this illness home, regardless of the strict precautions that I take. I know I am not alone in this. I hear these fears echoed at work each day, yet we show up. We put on our uniform and tie our boots.
Photographed by Mary Zita Payne
We are here for you, so please, keep staying home for us. It has never been so easy to save a life, just stay home. This is change and change is hard, but without change, we don’t grow. I believe we will come out of this stronger, more adaptable and better paramedics. We will remember all of those who put their fear in their back pocket and chose faith.
The doctors, nurses, hospital cleaning and maintenance staff, pharmacists, lab techs, diagnostic imagining techs, administrative staff, PSWs, firefighters, police, grocery store clerks, journalists and health communications, truck drivers, gas station attendants, postal workers… the list goes on and on.
We won’t forget the support of our peers, allied health agencies, and our community. This pandemic affects everyone. Its waves turn to ripples and they reach everyone.
It reaches the woman with the Stage 1 breast cancer diagnosis, who is now unable to receive the surgery she needs.
It reaches the elderly man with dementia in a retirement home, who relies on daily family visits to feel grounded.
It reaches the first-time mom with pregnancy complications, who now has to stay in a specialized Toronto hospital without her spouse.
It reaches the new widow, who watched her husband be taken away by
ambulance and receives a phone call that he didn’t make it and she grieves alone in isolation.
Please hear me. Just because you can’t always see the waves and ripples of COVID 19, don’t believe it’s not happening. Stay home. Save lives. Don’t be the tsunami.
—Kelly Convery, Paramedic
(Mary Zita Payne, who is producing this series—you can read the first installment here, the second one here and the third here—has been documenting frontline healthcare workers on the frontlines on her personal blog.)
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PRHC RN Kailin Wilson On Her Experience Being Redeployed To The ICU During Pandemic & Impact On Family
/In the third of a PTBOCanada series on the experiences of frontline healthcare workers in Peterborough produced by Mary Zita Payne, RN Kailin Wilson gives us a firsthand look on what it’s like being on the frontlines during the pandemic. Here is her experience in her own words…
February 2020. I wake up every morning to my children, I don’t start work for another 1-2 hours. I get them ready, fed and off to daycare and school. I have no anxiety, no pit in my stomach. I enjoy my job and I am excited to be at work doing what I love.
Fast forward to March 2020. I get the phone call that I am being redeployed to the ICU. It’s not foreign to me, I have worked there before. What is foreign is the fear and the anguish that comes over me. My first thoughts are, ‘My husband is a front-line shift worker, how are we going to do this?' Thankfully, his job has been more than understanding. I am going to have to adapt to a new kind of normal.
Kailin Wilson (photographed at PRHC by Mary Zita Payne)
My first day in ICU, I wake up with an unrelenting pit in my stomach. I’m nervous and rightfully so. My husband and I have come up with a plan of how I am going to return home. I will change in the garage, leave my belongings there and shower right away. I won’t pick up the kids from daycare because it is too risky to have them in such close contact with me. This is going to kill me I think—all I want to do after a hard day is hug my babies.
I’m not sure how I am going to feel going into this, I haven’t done it before. I have never cared for a patient that has or is suspected to have COVID-19. I walk into work and am asked a series of questions upon entering.
Everything is different at work.
Nobody is close because of physical distancing; we are all wearing masks and we try our hardest while caring for our patients to preserve PPE. None of this is normal. As nurses, we aren’t taught or programmed to limit our exposure, to make it worth our while to go into these rooms, “group our care” if you will.
Photographed at PRHC by Mary Zita Payne
I have never worried about the germs I bring home to my children. My background is the recovery room. Most patients are healthy, otherwise surgery would be cancelled. While I am at work, in the thick of this pandemic, the last thing on my mind is my anxiety or concerns.
My main focus is giving this patient the best possible care that I can. This is someone’s husband or wife, mom or dad. I care for them as if they were mine. But when I’m driving home from work, all of my anxiety and my greatest fear comes rushing over me.
Photographed at PRHC by Mary Zita Payne
What if I wasn’t safe enough? What if I didn’t have my N95 respirator sealed tight enough? What if the hand sanitizer I use multiple times a day didn’t do its job?
You see, my daughter was very sick as a baby.
She required ICU care at Sick Kids, which left her lungs with chronic inflammation. I can’t help but have this in the back of my mind. I mean, her favourite thing to do is to be with her mom all the time. How do you explain to a three-year-old to “physically distance” herself?
Nobody is perfect. No amount of PPE is going to protect us all from this virus. It doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care how healthy you are or how old you are. My biggest message to everyone is to follow the guidelines the government has set out for us. It is imperative that we as a community and country follow the rules if we want any sort of “normal” to return.
Photographed at PRHC by Mary Zita Payne
