The testing centre at the Centre hospitalier Bois de l'Abbaye (CHBA) in Seraing, Liège Province, is closed from 17 to 25 October, CHBA Communication Officer Nicolas Petterie said on Saturday.
The closure is meant to give the hospital, which has been overwhelmed by the demand for testing, time to find ways to regularise the flow.
The CHBA - the second hospital to announce the closure of its testing centre on Saturday, after the Groupe santé CHC - said the move would enable it to come up with another type of organisation.
“There are more people wanting to be tested and we have never been so swamped,” CHBA’s Petterie said. “When a centre closes it falls back on us. The bottleneck we now have cannot be resolved. We'd already doubled the lines, but we do not have the necessary infrastructure.”
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Over 200 people are tested each day between 12.30 p.m. and 4.30 p.m. seven days a week at the CHBA, Petterie explained.
At about 2.00 p.m. on Saturday, the police and steward services asked people wishing to be tested to return home.
The hospital plans to reopen its testing centre on Monday 26 October. By then, new measures are to be worked out between the police services and the hospital management.
In the meantime, people can still be tested on the P+R Parking Lot in Vottem, where the Cita drive Laboratory has been set up.
The Brussels Times
