Non-profit Jersey City Together is accusing Quest Diagnostics of de-prioritizing COVID-19 test results for low-income residents, reports Hudson County View.
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In a letter to Quest Diagnostics CEO Steve Rusckowski, Jersey City Together writes:
“Two weeks ago, starting July 1, we worked with the State of New Jersey, Interfaith Urgent Care, and the City of Jersey City to test more than 1,200 people at The Cityline Church in Jersey City.
“Many of those tested are still waiting on results. This is beyond unacceptable.
“Your company has stated publicly that you are de-prioritizing processing certain tests. It seems to us you have further de-prioritized free tests for low- and moderate-income people and people of color in your own county.”
Earlier this week Quest Diagnostics released a statement saying:
“Despite our rapid scaling up of capacity, soaring demand for COVID-19 molecular diagnostic tests across the United States is slowing the time in which we can provide test results.
“As a result, our average turnaround time for reporting test results is slightly more than 1 day for our priority 1 patients. However, our average turnaround time for all other populations is 7 or more days.”
Priority 1 patients are described as “hospital patients, pre-operative patients in acute care settings and symptomatic healthcare workers.”
Late Thursday, Jersey City Together announced that Quest had replied to their letter and the lab was prioritizing the 300+ swab tests that had not been processed.
Hudson County View reports that Jersey City Together is now using BioReference Laboratories for its test results.
Sounds like they are prioritizing people who are in the hospital and symptomatic healthcare workers, does not sound like a “people of color’ issue. We need more responsible reporting! There is plenty of unnecessary racism in this county, this does not seem to be one of them, this takes away from the valid complaints that are made and ignored.
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