ANYONE who would like to take a free Covid test can have one from this weekend when the HSE will open a walk-in and drive-through testing site at the grounds of St Joseph’s Health Campus, Mulgrave Street. in Limerick City this Saturday morning for six days.
The five-bay facility, – which is located at Eircode V94 C8DV) – close to the city centre, will be operated from 11am to 7pm on Saturday, April 10 to Thursday, April 15. This is an operation led by the National Ambulance Service and supported by HSE Mid-West Community Healthcare and Public Health Mid-West.
The service will be open to members of the public who live close or within walking distance of the testing centre. The service is for those who do not have COVID-19 symptoms and for people who are concerned that they may have been at risk of infection in the past two weeks. Children can get tested if they are accompanied by a parent.
Anyone asking for a test must bring a photo ID with and provide a mobile phone number so testers can relay results.
But anyone with symptoms is being urged to consult their GP to arrange a test rather than avail of the walk-in facility.
Dr Anne Dee, Specialist in Public Health Medicine, at Public Health Mid-West said: “We welcome the opening of this testing facility, which is an additional tool in our armoury in the fight against COVID-19. While infections are dropping to manageable levels and there are no current trends to raise our level of concern, we are using this as an opportunity for active case finding in order to detect asymptomatic positives in the community. Though the daily numbers are low, we know the virus is still among us.
“Finding these cases allows Public Health Mid-West to identify their contacts with the aim of breaking the chains of transmission to prevent further cases and outbreaks.”
The free, walk in test takes just a couple of minutes and is available to anyone aged 16 years and over, to children accompanied by a parent, those who do not have symptoms of COVID-19 but would like to be tested, people living live within 5k of the walk-in testing cents and people have not tested positive for COVID-19 in the last six months.
