Dis-Chem reopens Covid-19 drive-thru testing sites
Pharmacy chain Dis-Chem has reopened a number of its Covid-19 testing stations across the country.
This comes after the drive-thru testing sites were shut down last month, citing massive backlogs.
Gauteng and the Western Cape experienced a spike in people wanting to test for Covid-19 during that time, proving a headache for the pharmacy chain.
But Dis-Chem’s national clinic manager Lizeth Kruger says the system has been modified to meet the demand.
“The spike in Cape Town knocked us a bit but then we recovered but then the spike in Gauteng and we knew it was going to happen, but we didn’t know it was going to be a tsunami.
“The volumes were just too much, the waiting time wasn’t 24 to 48 hours anymore and it was just a big mess.”
Kruger says the drive-thru testing sites are coming back due to popular demand.
“During the last three weeks there were so many requests to open these sites again because of the access to get the testing done and because of the convenience of just staying in your car.”
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Kruger adds the availability of additional testing sites will ease the pressure on government’s existing testing facilities.
The pharmacy will have a total of 21 sites across the country.
“We slowly but surely opened some of the sites. We have Centurion open again, Mall of the South is open, Eastgate and three sites in Cape Town,” she says.
“We are opening another few in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal in the course of the next week. There is a need in Mpumalanga as well.”
Eastern Cape also has a site in Port Elizabeth.
Kruger says they’ve implemented an online system to manage bookings.
Only a maximum of 100 bookings a day can be made, to manage the turn-around time.
Listen to Lizeth Kruger below:
