Private clinics and healthcare centres have in recent days facing an influx of people with need for a COVID-19 PCR test. A lot of people have had to change their travel plans due to delay in getting their PCR test results.
An Indian expat planning to travel to his home country said he had to go to a private health centre for a PCR test at 5am yesterday, but when he reached there, there were already over 150 people in queue. “People had been waiting there since 2am. And they stopped accepting walk-ins at 7am because they had reached their daily quota.” Waiting for four to five hours, with a crowd, is tiring, he said.
The said clinic in a message also cautioned him prior to his testing that: “COVID-19 test reports are generating and sending us by Hamad Virology Laboratory Department. There is some delay in getting RT-PCR reports on time since last two weeks and it has taken 36 hours to 48 hours and even 70 hours for few of the cases. Hence, it’s completely your discretion to perform the COVID-19 test in our facility for travel purpose and any delay in report for travel will be only at your risk. The Management will not take any responsibility of your travel.”
Another resident experienced the same thing. Accompanying his son, they went to three private clinics to take the RT-PCR test and only on the third clinic they were able to go through the required test. “My son is travelling on January 4 and we haven't gotten the result or a text confirmation from Hamad or the clinic so far," he told The Peninsula yesterday afternoon.
His son took the test on Saturday, January 1. “My son will be travelling to Canada and before departure, he has to upload all the documents including the PCR test result in an app called ArriveCAN.” In worst case scenario, if no confirmation from the app is received because of the lack of PCR test report, he said he will have to rebook the ticket.
Sharing the same sentiment, a Twitter user posted a photo of a long line of vehicles waiting for the PCR test at a health center, saying: “Nightmare... We can’t leave our home... All are waiting for PCR... Going on since 2 days now.”
Most of the countries require a negative COVID-19 PCR test from incoming passengers taken within 36 to 72 hours before flight. The situation was particularly tricky for those travelling to countries that require a negative test taken within 48 hours.
Irfan Omar, a travel agency manager, said they were facing issues amongst travellers rebooking their tickets.
“For two to three days now, we are getting messages from customers rebooking their flights because they haven’t received their PCR test results. We are having two to three such cases daily,” he said.
Private healthcare facilities perform the swab test, and afterwards the data collected is sent to the state-run Hamad Medical Corporation for PCR testing. The Ministry of Public Health has said it is providing free COVID-19 PCR tests across all 28 Primary Health Care Corporation health centres in the country. In a tweet, the Ministry said: “People with signs and symptoms of COVID-19 are advised to go directly to any of these health centres for testing, free of charge, and avoid contact with other people until the test result is confirmed.”
