Cork Kerry Community Healthcare wishes to remind the public that walk-in testing at COVID-19 screening centres in Dunmanway and Cork city is not currently available.

The centres are available for testing by appointment, and we appeal to the public to attend for their scheduled appointments. Where that’s not possible, we ask people to cancel as far in advance as possible.

There has been significant demand for tests at both screening in recent weeks, which led to long waiting times for anyone attending as a walk-in, without an appointment.

Our priority at the swabbing sites is to provide the public with safe, timely and efficient testing, and we ask the public to help us by freeing up appointment slots which they won’t attend.

The temporary move to appointment-only testing is aimed at making sure we can manage the demand for appointments and spread appointments throughout the day. Making sure to cancel an appointment which you can’t attend means that the slot can be offered to others, which in turn helps us to offer test appointments as quickly as possible.

Elizabeth Healy, Cork Kerry Community Healthcare Covid clinical lead, asked members of the public who have appointments to keep that appointment.

“If you can’t make your appointment, you can cancel via the text message you received to confirm your appointment. Cancelling your appointment as soon as you know you’re not going to make it means that the appointment slot can be freed up and offered to others,” Ms Healy said.

Any member of the public can still book themselves an appointment for a test at hse.ie, on this page:

https://covid19test.healthservice.ie/hse-self-referral/

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