Last weekend, Robert McCarron called a taxi to the main entrance of the Oakville Trafalgar Memorial hospital.
But the 59-year-old Oakville resident didn’t want to leave the hospital. He needed a ride to the emergency department on the other side of the building, to visit the COVID-19 testing site.
While Oakville Transit’s Care-A-Van service had delivered him to the north-west entrance area, it wouldn’t drop him on the other side of the building because its policy is not to give people a ride for COVID testing.
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While he had no COVID symptoms, McCarron says he wanted the test “just because I live in an apartment building and I’m somewhat nervous about common hallways and the like.”
But as someone who walks with a cane and suffers from stage four liver disease and scoliosis, he wasn’t capable of walking around the whole hospital and wasn’t permitted to cut through it.
“It cost me $5 to get over to emergency,” says McCarron. “I was absolutely upset about the whole day.”
He’s frustrated that the Care-A-Van service will transport people to the hospital, but not to the COVID testing centre in the building.
He says he was told by Care-A-Van staff that the policy exists because they don’t want to risk drivers or other passengers becoming infected.
While he sees that as completely reasonable, McCarron notes that the service conducts COVID screening on all passengers before allowing them to ride.
He believes that refusing to transport non-symptomatic people who rely on the affordable service to a convenient hospital entrance is discriminatory.
While able-bodied people can simply walk to the testing area from public transit, he is forced to pay for a taxi.
“How is a person supposed to get a test when they refuse to take me there?”
“Oakville Care-A-Van, in their hypocrisy, won’t take anyone for a test but they encourage everyone to get tested.”
We wanted to ask Lesley Cook, acting director of Oakville Transit, about McCarron’s experience and the service’s policy but she wouldn’t talk to us.
Instead, the town’s corporate communications department sent us an emailed statement attributed to Colleen Bell, the town’s commissioner of community services.
It says the town’s transit rules follow provincial guidelines and prioritize the health and safety of passengers and transit workers.
“Specifically, as Care-A-Van is a shared ride service which often requires close hands-on assistance by the driver, the service does not accept customers on board with COVID-19 symptoms or those requiring COVID testing,” said the statement.
It adds that people with symptoms or other COVID risk factors should not take public transit or enter any town facility.
“In those circumstances, anyone going for a COVID test should arrange for personal or private transportation to and from the test facility.”
McCarron says he loves care-A-van and has been using the service for eight years.
After the weekend incident, he says the agency attempted to apologize to him but continues to stand by its policy.
“I’ll be honest with you, I used the sick card as my point to try and talk them into doing this for some people but it did not work and they didn’t want to hear from me anymore.”
“I’m convinced the public isn’t aware of this.”