KITCHENER -- A Waterloo Region man is frustrated after he claims he's been tested three times for COVID-19 but is still awaiting accurate results.
He claims it all comes down to a lack of lab capacity.
Chad didn't want to speak on camera, but he says he was first tested for the virus on April 24 at the Westmount Assessment Centre. In total, he was tested there three separate times.
He says his first test came back on April 28 and was inconclusive. His second test came back negative, but then he got a call saying it was actually inconclusive as well.
Both times, he says he was told his samples didn't make it to the lab in time, meaning they were no longer valid, hence the inconclusive results.
Most of the laboratory testing doesn't actually happen in the region: tests are sent to labs, often in Toronto, Hamilton or London, to be processed.
If a test is sent to one of those facilities but it doesn't have the capacity, the test can be rerouted to another lab that may have the capacity.
Acting Medical Officer of Health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang admits that, as they test more people, complaints have gone up.
"About people waiting a long time for test results or even their test results not being done because their samples were rerouted by a lab that was over capacity," she said during a Wednesday media briefing.
The Ontario government says it has the lab capacity to process more than 20,000 samples a day, but public health officials here say that's not exactly the case.
"There's a difference between what is said at the provincial teleconferences, about, 'we have all this testing capacity, all these tests we can do in a day,' and the actual reality on the ground," Dr. Wang explained Wednesday.
READ MORE: The story behind the COVID-19 testing numbers
The province runs the COVID-19 lab testing system.
Officials say there are now 22 labs in Ontario, and that lab capacity should no longer be a problem for public health units.
"If they are experiencing issues, they should be contacting me or someone else at the ministry to work to resolve those issues," said Ontario Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Jaffe during a media briefing earlier this week.
"But we are very confident that our capacity is over 20,000 and it's growing."
Both doctors agree the pandemic lab system was built in weeks, something which would normally take years.
But Dr. Wang says that the backlog in processing results has played a key reason in why they've held back on testing the general public. They don't want to overwhelm the lab system.
As for Chad, he was tested for the third time on Monday and is still waiting to find out if he has the virus.
