Victoria COVID-19 Testing Centre

Let me be clear. I am all for accessible testing, contact tracing, and self isolation... but this service was a massive disappointment today. Monday August 10 I waited 3.25 hours without talking to a nurse or booking an appointment. My symptoms are mild but I want to protect my community and bubble. Place us on a call list. expecting people to wait this long will not contain this virus. With cases going up now is the time to fix this broken system.

Waited on hold for a normal call center time, nothing like the hours reported by others. Staff was very helpful. Even though their system could not find my health number they immediately got an IT person to set me up a record so they could book the appointment for next day. Appointment logistics were smooth and the nurse took extra care with my nose issues. Result (negative, as expected) showed up 24 hours later on MyHealth.

Sat on the phone for 4hrs. They asked for my name, care card number and phone number. Then said they would transfer me to a nurse. The nurses asked me questions, said she was concerned, told me to isolate, then told me she would transfer me to someone who would book me an appointment to get tested. 3hrs late, nothing. It’s all a sham. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of us have or already have had COVID and they’re just collecting data of people who have symptoms. Not getting tested and telling people to stay home is what they want. Less mass hysteria this way.

Friendly busy nurses. Yes it took hours on the phone and a couple of days to get an appointment, but imagine how bad it would be if our health care system was actually overwhelmed because people were treating the virus like they do in places like the U.S. We're doing well here in BC, keep it up!

Took 2.5 hours to talk to someone. Then another hour of hold time. Then they said 5 minutes to book an appointment. Literally an hour later, still not talking to someone to book my appointment. For being a world ending disease, one would think that a functioning phone tree would be at the top of their priority to get people in to book appointments and do testing.

As others have stated the wait time was longer than the estimate given but both people I spoke to were friendly and efficient. The nurse I spoke to had a lot of information and was able to answer all of my questions and provide me with information for my employer. A long wait time when using a call centre is pretty standard. Just put your phone on speaker, make sure you have lots of time and go about your day.

Called about 30 times over the last two days at various times and still haven’t even been able to talk to somebody, it just plays the same recording then disconnects the call. I understand if the line is busy but at least let people wait on hold? Or have some sort of online booking system? How can they expect everyone in the city with “cold symptoms” to fully self isolate and stay home from work and activities if they can’t even speak to somebody about it, let alone confirm if they actually have the virus? With it being this difficult to book a test I have to imagine there are a ridiculous amount of undocumented cases, no wonder the virus is spreading again.

This is insane, I've been on the phone for more than four-and-a-half hours now just trying to get my appointment booked!! Surely there's a better way to do this than making someone hold and wait three times to speak to three different people. What is the purpose of calling 811 first if you're going to have to speak to a nurse again on this line and answer the exact same questions? This needs to be improved. This is not an acceptable wait time just to book an appointment. Do better.

I had some cold symptoms and decided to get a test. I called Saturday afternoon. There was a few minutes wait to get through to the first screener. Everyone was friendly and efficient, and I got an appointment for the next testing day (Monday, as they're closed on Sundays). I arrived, as requested, just before my appointment. The entrance is the first right turn off of Pembroke coming from Cook (once you turn in, just follow the signs). Everyone was friendly and efficient. The test itself was bearable, and the (thankfully, negative) results showed up on the Island Health MyHealth" web site the next day. No complaints. Good job!"

Just thought I'd share my timeline with this place in case it's helpful to anyone else:Oct 29th 9:06am: I called the number. A robot said someone would call me backOct 29th 9:36am: Someone called back to ask me some quick intake questions. I was then transferred to someone else to get scheduled. I was on hold for about 15 min before I talked to that other person. I got scheduled for 1:50 pm that day.Oct 29th 1:50 pm: I showed up and only had to wait a minute or two for a very kind woman to shove an eight foot long q-tip down my nose farther than I thought was humanly possible. I then went through the super easy process to sign up to get my test results via SMS.Oct 30th 11:30am: I got an SMS saying my results were negative.Overall, everyone involved in the testing process that's been set up should be incredibly proud of their efforts and we should all be thanking them profusely!