After a similar change on the Gaspé tip last week, the Sainte-Anne-des-Monts sampling center also left the hospital walls. Since December 17, it has now been established at 230 1re Avenue Ouest.
This move is part of Quebec’s desire to bring screening, vaccination and samples under one roof. This is what Jessie Robinson, head of these services at the Integrated Health and Social Services Center (CISSS) of Gaspésie, explains.
This decision, announced by the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, in the fall of 2023, aims to sustain around a hundred vaccination sites set up during the COVID-19 pandemic across the province, by transforming them into “local service points”.
Blood, stool and urine samples as well as screening tests are now added to them.
Open in full screen mode
Samples in Baie-des-Chaleurs and in the Rocher-Percé sector are always taken in hospital centers. (Archive photo)
Photo : Getty Images / KLH49
“As for hospital premises, we will always need them, since certain samples [plus urgents ou spécialisés] will always have to get used to it,” underlines the assistant to the president and CEO and interim communications manager, Cassandra Lévesque.
End of walk-in
Jessie Robinson also points out that Sainte-Anne-des-Monts was the last site of the CISSS of Gaspésie operating with a walk-in system. “If the person arrived at 7:30 a.m., they might just be bitten around 10 a.m. if there were 50 people waiting. There, it will be by appointment, so the person will arrive, take their blood test, then they will leave,” she summarizes.
The service is also open to five full days per week, whereas it only had three half days at the hospital.
The Clic Santé portal does not yet offer appointments for samples for the region. Instead, call 418 763-1846. Samples are now taken from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., on December 19, 23 and 30, 2024, then from January 6, 2025, Monday to Friday.
