Amid Quebec COVID-19 testing crunch, online glitch suddenly cancels hundreds of appointments
Hundreds of people in the Montreal area were told at the last minute on Wednesday that their appointments to get tested for COVID-19 were cancelled.
Judith Gaudreau, a spokesperson for the CISSS Laval health care region, told CTV News that a technical problem with the province's online booking system resulted in too many people being booked for PCR tests at the same places and times.
Quebec's Health Ministry posted a note on its Twitter account saying that the COVID-19 testing platform is currently under maintenance.
"We remind you that testing in a testing centre should only be considered if you have symptoms of COVID-19 and do not have rapid tests," the ministry wrote.
All four of Laval's public COVID testing centres are currently not taking appointments for the rest of the day Wednesday as officials try to fix the problem, right as a severe testing bottleneck is already hitting the province.
In Laval, those sites are the Dagenais, Place du Souvenir, Pont Viau and St-Francois testing facilities.
The sudden cancellations reportedly happened elsewhere across the province, caused by the same glitch in the provincially run booking site.
Aside from its comment on Twitter, the health ministry has not yet responded to a question from CTV News about what went wrong with the site and how widespread the problem is.
Gaudreau said people in Laval showed up for their previously booked appointments but were simply turned away.
The booking platform is normally accessible through the lavalsante.com website. Officials said they hope the system will be back to normal by Thursday morning.
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