Pawtucket, Central Falls collaborate on walk-up testing site for COVID-19

A NEW WALK-UP COVID-19 testing site at the location of the former Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket opened last week, and offers services in Spanish, Creole, Portuguese and other languages. / COURTESY CARE NEW ENGLAND HEALTH SYSTEM

PAWTUCKET – Pawtucket and Central Falls have pooled resources to create an incident commence center dubbed CFP Beat COVID-19.

Led by Dr. Michael Fine, Pawtucket’s public health liaison, who also heads the Central Falls Office on Health, the team aims to reach out to every household in the two cities, where cases of COVID-19 continue to rise. The goal is to quickly identify residents who become sick and isolate them immediately.

“Beat COVID-19 is a group of local and state organizations working in concert with the R.I. Department of Health in order to access hard-to-reach communities and provide them with the opportunity to defend themselves from this spread. This approach is different and has never been done before,” Fine said.

About 30 people from more than 16 organizations have joined the effort. Health care workers who want to join the team are asked to visit riresponds.org or call Nola Rich at 401-385-3911 to sign up.

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As part of Beat COVID-19, a walk-up testing site opened last week on the former Memorial Hospital campus in Pawtucket. Run by Care New England Health System, the site is designed to serve local residents.

Appointments are required to receive a test at the site, which offers services in Spanish, Portuguese, Creole and other languages.

“Our communities have been deeply affected [by COVID-19],” said Pawtucket Mayor Donald R. Grebien. “This testing facility will allow us to quickly identify everyone sick in our cities so we can get them into isolation and help them get the support services they need in isolation.”

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