SUDBURY -- Staff at Sudbury's Health Sciences North (HSN) are marking a milestone number of COVID-19 samples processed in the last five months.

Since June, staff have processed 85,000 samples from across northeastern Ontario.

"We've increased our capacity and our ability to test through building in redundancy through equipment, increasing staff compliments and basically lots of hard work, dedication, hours, overtime, by all of our staff members to contribute to the team effort of the testing," said Erin Tarini, administrative director of HSN's laboratory and pathology program.

In the early days, without the necessary equipment for mass-processing, staff were only processing about 40 a day, which were for hospital staff only. Now, about 1,000 tests are being completed every day.

New equipment, staff

"We brought in new equipment, we trained our staff to be able to do higher volumes and we put in more automation to be able to take our testing numbers to a higher level that was needed for our area," said Tarini.

Dr. Danielle Bravant-Kirwan is the clinical microbiologist who is responsible for signing off on every one of the 85,000 samples that have been tested.

"I don't sleep much," said Bravant-Kirwan with a laugh. "I do all of the sign-out and I also try to help out with the large volume for processing. So if I see that we are getting a lot of volume and we have a little bit of a backlog, I'll jump in there and so will my associate and all of the other staff will all pitch in working very, very hard as a team to push through all of the high volume that is coming through the lab."

In order to be a processing site, HSN needed to purchase new equipment in order to meet the demand. Due to supply chain issues early on, the team ordered three different types of automated extractors.

"We brought in new equipment, we trained our staff to be able to do higher volumes and we put in more automation to be able to take our testing numbers to a higher level that was needed for our area," said Tarini.

It is a multi-step process to discover the samples that are positive for the novel coronavirus. First, staff heat and extract the genetic material.

"Then we go into a second step where it is being amplified and where we make multiple copies so that it's at a detectable level," said Dr. Bravant-Kirwan. "So in those scenarios if you do have the virus in the initial sample, we would have sort of a graph that will show the amplification of the viral target and therefore be able to give that diagnosis."

Open 24/7

Most staff are working from 7 a.m. until after 9 p.m. at night. But, it is a 24/7 operation, with the reporting being conducted in the overnight hours. Tarini said the challenge now is hiring enough staff.

"Recruiting laboratory professionals is a significant challenge in the north," she said. "But we've been able to tap into our resources in house to redeploy people, rearrange work schedules and work structure to be able to maintain the service and enhance the service."

She said HSN is working closely with Health Force Ontario on recruitment efforts to hire more support.

With health experts worried about the expected second wave of the virus coming with the onset of flu season, work is being done to prepare.

"We are developing the ability to test for flu and COVID simultaneously for our in-patients should that need arise," said Tarini. "Alternatively, we do test for influenza here at HSN so we will still be able to offer that service to make sure that we are monitoring our patient population properly."

Despite challenges that may lie ahead, staff are proud of what they have achieved so far.

"I'm very, very proud to be a part of this team where we've all come together to be able to achieve what we've done so far," said Bravant-Kirwan. "Thousands of samples a day is definitely not something I would have ever imagined being able to do." 

Correction:

Clarification on the group that HSN is working closely with on recruitment efforts has been made in the article. It is Health Force Ontario, not Medical Laboratory Professionals Association of Ontario and the College of Medical Laboratory Technologists of Ontario.