Motorists at Victoria Park wait up to nine hours for Covid tests, before interstate arrival rule changes cut times

Wait times at overrun Covid test sites in SA skyrocketed to nine hours, before a major testing rule was scrapped. But people were still waiting around four hours on Wednesday morning.

Testing lines at Victoria Park eclipsed mammoth nine-hour wait times in the early hours of Tuesday morning, before a major Covid-19 rule change slashed waiting times.

The requirement for interstate arrivals to be tested when entering South Australia was scrapped by Premier Steven Marshall about 11am, which led to cars turning around in droves and leaving testing centres around the state.

While lines were significantly shorter on Tuesday afternoon, people were reporting wait times of up to four hours on Wednesday morning around 6.30am.

Many cheered the news, but Nigel Brooks and his family, who had returned to SA from Sydney to celebrate Christmas, were gutted.

The family of four had driven to SA on Monday and after being turned away from the Tailem Bend testing site due to a six-hour wait and only two staff being on, they headed for Victoria Park.

When they arrived they were told to expect an eight-hour wait. The family made the decision to return on Tuesday morning at 5.30am, when they waited five hours to be tested.

Mr Brooks, 45, said the interstate testing requirement was scrapped an hour after they had been through the line – which he described as “super frustrating”.

Yesterday was also his son Isaac’s 15th birthday.

“While everyone was high-fiving, we grieved,” he said.

Mr Brooks and Isaac took to kicking the football to pass the time in the line, pictured, and while he said there was “no issue with the testing regime”, resourcing was the problem.

Nigel and Isaac Brooks play football while waiting for a test at Victoria Park. Picture: Keryn Stevens

He believed the long wait times could have been avoided.

“You’ve gotta be able to forecast roughly what’s going to happen (when opening borders), how many people may come back, how many people from SA are going away … and it just seems like none of that was done,” he said.

Yesterday at 3pm, wait times for tests at Victoria Park, Bedford Park, Port Adelaide, the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Aldinga and Adelaide Airport all fell to under an hour. Ridgehaven had a 2.5 hour wait, while Hampstead and Elizabeth South saw 1.5 hour testing turnarounds.

Once queues had died down, those lining up for tests were in a better mood.

Carolyne DMello, 53, and son Liam, 13, who had to wait five-hours for their first test last week, said their day six test only took an hour.

Carolyne and Liam DMello who started watching a movie on a laptop during their wait at Victoria Park. Picture: Morgan Sette

Ms DMello said they were happy to wait.

“You gotta do what you gotta do,” Ms DMello said. “It’s good for us and it’s good for everyone else.”

WAGE CALL

SA Pathology’s union, Professionals Australia, has called for higher wages to attract more staff and help reduce wait times on Tuesday.

“Right now, SA Pathology is struggling to hire the additional staff needed to manage the increase in Covid testing due to low wages and poor workplace conditions,” chief executive officer for Professionals Australia, Jill McCabe said.

“While the Marshall government tries to blame a so-called labour shortage for not being able to hire more SA Pathology staff, the reality is better wages and conditions are required to attract more staff.”

There were reports of the line stretching past the grandstand on Monday evening into Tuesday morning, almost to the Britannia roundabout.

On an online discussion page on Covid testing station wait times, one woman wrote she had been waiting in line since 8.15pm Monday, and had only been seen by authorities after 3am – more than seven hours later.

Premier Steven Marshall ruled out enlisting the help of the ADF at testing sites, as happened in the July lockdown.

Earlier on Tuesday, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said he had held discussions with SA Health about bringing in the ADF to help.

Mr Stevens said the decision was dependant on whether the ADF could provide the sort of resources that could make a difference to wait times.

“Sometimes it’s not about arms and legs, it’s having the right skill set,” he said early on Tuesday.

Motorists waited up to eight hours for a Covid test at Victoria Park overnight. Pic: Brenton Edwards

The state government was on Monday urged to introduce rapid antigen tests – which are currently only allowed for use by high-risk medical workers – so testing requirements can be done from home.

More than 20,000 people were tested for Covid-19 in SA on Monday.

Night views of Victoria Park’s testing station. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Opposition Labor leader Chris Picton said South Australians had to suffer “another horrible night of testing delays” on Monday night.

“Last night there was again shocking images of long lines for testing – with the line for Victoria Park snaking right around down to Fullarton Road – longer than even the night before,” Mr Picton said.

“People being turned away from one massive queue, to head to another massive queue, shows how unprepared the government was (to open borders).”

He said there were not enough contact tracers to cope with the borders reopening, after it took 47 hours to announce new exposure sites.

“However, despite recording 185 new cases in the intervening period, only six new exposure sites were identified,” he said.

A Facebook group, SA Community Known Exposure Sites, is taking contact tracing into its own hands, Mr Picton said.

Prof Spurrier on Monday said contact tracers were placing further focus on high-risk exposure site settings which would affect vulnerable groups such as hospitals and aged care homes.