A SECOND COVID-19 testing facility was established in Gawler on Friday morning to cope with high demand in town.
Queues at the Gawler Hospital testing facility were swamped in the days following the outbreak of the Parafield Cluster, with some having to line-up for hours.
SA Health announced on Thursday evening that a second site would become available.
Located at the Gawler Sport and Community Centre on Nixon Terrace, no bookings or referrals were required for locals to get tested.
A spokesperson for the organisation said the clinic was established to help alleviate some of the pressure placed on Gawler Hospital and other sites in the northern suburbs.
They also said it was an added precaution given the close proximity of a number of hotspots in the Playford and Salisbury areas.
More than 20,000 tests were conducted across the state on November 18 and 19 as South Australia went into what was initially expected to be a six-day lockdown in a bid to get on top of the outbreak.
Husband and wife Edward and Aileen Cates, from Evanston Park, were two of the first people to be tested at the centre.
The pair had attempted to be tested at Gawler Hospital on Thursday, but were put off by long waiting times.
Mrs Cates said she had never seen anything like the COVID-19 pandemic before.
“It was polio when we went to school, but I don’t remember too much of that, but even SARS was nothing like this,” she said.
Gawler resident Jamie, who did not wish for her last name to be printed, had been at the Elizabeth Aquadome on Saturday, November 14, and had been attempting to self-quarantine and seek testing.
She felt “frustrated” following attempts to secure a test for her and her child after developing COVID-19 symptoms.
On Wednesday she tried to visit the drive-through clinic at Elizabeth, but failed to progress in the line.
She arrived at the centre on Friday expecting to find a drive-through clinic.
“It is just hard, I get that they are under the pump, I have been on the phone for three or four days” she said.
Initially she was informed that a home test would be scheduled, however on Friday morning she was told a test had not been organised and that she would need to visit a drive-through clinic.
“It is just frustrating, we have come down with symptoms and I don’t know what else to do,” she said.
The SA Health spokesperson told The Bunyip that people who had been at one of the locations associated with the Parafield Cluster and had developed symptoms could visit a clinic and be made a priority patient.
