Longford TD Joe Flaherty is calling on the HSE to urgently rethink a decision to scale back Covid testing facilities in Longford and Mullingar.
The Fianna Fail Deputy says he's been told the test centre in Longford, and the one on the St Loman's campus in Mullingar, are due to close from the 22nd of this month.
He says while staff have been told the National Ambulance Staff will take over a much reduced testing capacity, it's been well documented the NAS don't have enough personnel to cover their own service, let alone take on a second.
Speaking on the Let's Talk show this afternoon the Longford public representative says it's premature to leave the midlands without a testing service over the next couple of months.
"I appreciate the throughput of people through the test centres is quite low but anecdotely, we know covid is very much out there. There is an expectation there's going to be a further spike in covid numbers allied with the flu over the coming months and I just think it's premature to scale it back at the scale that we're doing it. This decision to close on the 22nd should be pushed out to early in the new year until we're certain we're over the winter".
