Clinic Ramps Up Testing In Fair Haven

Angel Diaz plans to go back to work this week after nearly two months off from his job delivering office furniture.

First he needed to get tested for Covid-19. So he and his mom drove to their neighborhood health clinic, which has emerged as one of the city’s busiest testers as the city gradually ​“reopens” for business.

Diaz was one of three patients to come by Fair Haven Community Health Care’s (FHCHC) walk-up testing site at 374 Grand Ave. Wednesday morning between 10 and 10:30.

He and his mom, Marilyn Gueits, live just a few blocks away on Wolcott Street.

“I’m tired of staying at home” and eager to get back to work, Diaz said with a smile soon after he had received a nasopharyngeal swab — that is, a nylon-tipped stick stuck up his right nostril for 10 seconds — by FHCHC dentist-turned-coronavirus tester Victoria Massey.

He said the test didn’t hurt, and that he should get his results in a few days. He said his boss told him he needed to get tested before he could come back to work, which he was furloughed from towards the start of the novel coronavirus outbreak in mid-March.

Gueits got swabbed at the Grand Avenue site a few days ago and that that results had come back negative.

Which was a great relief, she said, because the first time she got tested over a month ago, she found out that she was positive for the virus.

She said her experience with Covid-19 wasn’t terrible — ​“it was only sometimes that I felt tired” — and that she is relieved to have recovered and to have that bout of illness behind her. ​“Thank God,” she said, looking up to the sky and pressing her hands together in prayer.

The four community health care workers on site, all decked out in protective gowns, face maks, face shields, and gloves, said that Wednesday morning’s steady clip of patients is pretty typical for the Grand Avenue testing site, which opened roughly a month ago in an effort to provide greater access to testing in hard-hit, working-class communities of color.

FHCHC CEO Suzanne Lagarde told the Independent by email that the Grand Avenue clinic has provided roughly 300 Covid-19 tests a week. That doesn’t even count FHCHC clinicians swinging by Mary Wade Home on Monday for a second round of testing of nursing home staff and residents.

Massey and fellow FHCHC dentist-turned-tester Lisa Zimberg (pictured) told the Independent Wednesday that on Tuesday alone they administered over 70 different Covid-19 tests.

While many of the patients have come from Fair Haven and elsewhere in the Elm City, Massey said, some have come from as far as East Hartford.

“It’s been an emotional roller coaster,” Massey said about her experience of the first two months of the pandemic.

She said that the community health clinic initially furloughed her and her three dentist colleagues in mid-March. Several weeks later, Massey said, the clinic tapped her and her colleagues to come back to work — not as dentists, but as Covid-19 testers.

“I felt like I had something to contribute,” she said, and was eager to get back on the job.

The 374 Grand Ave. testing site is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Those interested in getting tested do not need to be existing FHCHC patients, they do not need to be feeling sick or symptomatic, and they will not be charged if they don’t have insurance.

They do, however, have to schedule an appointment in advance by calling FHCHC’s dedicated Covid-19 phone line at 203 – 871-4179.

“What we do is pretty seamless,” said Zimberg. Patients are in and out of the waiting area-turned-testing site in just a few minutes. The test itself takes no more than 10 seconds.

Yoaniris Deleon (pictured), who greets patients and checks them in upon arrival, said she has heard a wide range of feelings — emotional and physical — from those coming by to get tested over the past four weeks. She said some people have had coughs, some fevers, some diarrhea, some no symptoms at all.

“A lot are scared,” she said.

The patients who came by Wednesday morning — including Diaz — appeared pretty sanguine on the matter, and no one said they had any Covid-19 symptoms.

Patricia Perez (pictured) said she drove from her home in East Haven to Grand Avenue to get tested because she will soon be moving to a new apartment to live with a friend, and her friend wanted her to get tested first.

She approached Deleon with her ID and they spoke in Spanish about what the test would consist of and how Perez should expect to receive her results in a few days.

Perez walked behind the glass partition separating the clinic’s waiting room from the outdoors. Massey stuck the swab up her right nostril for 10 seconds. And then she was on her way back to East Haven.

“It was ok,” Perez said, noting that it didn’t hurt and was only mildly uncomfortable.

Twelve-year-old New Havener Chavona Gallman (pictured with her mom Mohagany Perry) also swung by the Grand Avenue clinic Wednesday morning.

She said she’s feeling just fine, but she’s been spending a lot of time at her aunt’s house recently, and her aunt recently tested positive for Covid-19.

When asked how the Covid-19 swab felt up her nose, she said it wasn’t bad at all. ​“I’m used to it,” she said. She said she often gets bloody noses, which requires frequent daubing of her nostrils.

“They said I did better than other people,” she said with pride about how she didn’t even flinch when the swab went up her nose.

Lagarde and FHCHC spokesperson Karen Nemiah told the Independent that the community health clinic’s Covid-19 work has extended beyond testing at 374 Grand Ave. and at Mary Wade Home.

They said the clinic has partnered with CT Food Bank and M7 taxi service to make monthly food drop-offs for needy families. Lagarde said that last Saturday saw food delivered to 197 different families in the community.

They also said that the clinic has partnered with Ferraro’s and C‑Town grocery stores as well as M7 to deliver $25 worth of food to Fair Haven families where someone in the house has tested positive for Covid-19.

Click here , here, here and here to read more about the city’s seven testing sites.