KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Cars lined up for a mobile COVID-19 test site in the northeast part of the metro on Saturday. But this drive through test site was different in a couple important ways.
This historic Northeast is home to some of Kansas City’s most diverse populations. That is why the test site hosted by Della Lamb in partnership with Truman Medical Center made sure there were translators for five different languages on-site.
“Understanding the severity of COVID-19 within the different communities is so important. We need to understand how to care for each other and how to provide awareness of what’s going on,” Ryan Hudnall, the Executive Director of Della Lamb, said.
Hudnall works with immigrants settling in Kansas City from around the world. Many of them are recent immigrants who have already been through so much.
Ashok Sanadi is a case worker from Della Lamb who says that a small percentage of recent refugees are hesitant about providing the government with personal information.
“We want to make sure they don’t feel threatened. So many of them have been through horrendous trauma. There are some families who lived in refugee camps for 20 years, and they’ve been through God knows what kind of horrors. We want to make sure they feel comfortable,” Sanadi said.
Truman Medical Center is into its third week of mobile testing. Usually in order to get tested, patients have to display multiple symptoms of the Coronavirus. In Saturday’s setup, one symptom was enough to get a place in line.
“There are lot of people who just want to be sure that they don’t have it,” Kael Martin, who helps organize the test sites for TMC, said. “Knowing that some people are asymptomatic they want to at least have a conversation with a nurse about what symptoms they need to be mindful of. Some want to get the test just in case.”
With more and more businesses, including restaurants, beginning to open up in upcoming weeks, healthcare workers say it’s more important than ever to continue with social distancing, wearing a mask in crowded places, refraining from touching your face and hand washing. Experts also stress that as businesses begin to reopen point of contact testing is more crucial than ever to stopping the spread of the virus.
If you feel you have symptoms of the Coronavirus, including a fever, sore throat, cough, loss of taste or smell or shortness of breath, you can get a free test by calling Truman Medical Center’s Care line at 816 404-CARE.
