Hamilton Continuing Care ordered to allow St. Joseph’s Healthcare to investigate COVID outbreak response
A Hamilton long-term care home where 43 have been infected with COVID-19 and six have died has been ordered to allow St. Joseph's Healthcare to come into the facility to investigate its response to the outbreak.
Hamilton Continuing Care at 125 Wentworth St. S. must allow hospital staff to come into the facility for the purpose of monitoring, investigating and responding to an outbreak of COVID-19, to ensure use of the best infection prevention and control practices to decrease or eliminate the risks to health associated with the outbreak."
The order was made by Hamilton's medical officer of health, Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, on Nov. 21 under Section 29.2 of the Health Protection and Promotion Act.
We continue to be in daily contact with this facility and they are complying with the order," Hamilton public health said in a statement.
Hamilton Continuing Care is one of seven large outbreaks in local seniors' homes that have 14 cases or more. It was singled out for the order because there was transmission with ongoing concern, despite education" as evidenced by site inspections.
The home is managed by Schlegel Villages and a general COVID statement on its website says safety during the pandemic is the top priority and lists a number of measures it's undertaking, including following Ontario Public Health guidelines related to prevention and control.
The only other home with an order issued is Chartwell Willowgrove in Ancaster following infection control breaches.
The order on Nov. 17 under Section 22 of the act lists: inadequate screening of residents, staff or essential visitors; inadequate staff training on the use and reprocessing of PPE (personal protective equipment), which would prevent staff from safely providing appropriate care to ill residents"; inadequate hand hygiene education; inadequate compliance with physical distancing in staff areas; and an inadequate plan for enhanced cleaning.
Public health says Chartwell is complying. The home has had 79 infections and 15 deaths.
It is improving," said Ontario's Minister of Long-Term Care Merrilee Fullerton in question period at Queen's Park on Nov. 24.
But NDP Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas MPP Sandy Shaw said more urgency is needed as the virus carves a devastating path through area seniors' homes.
This is a crisis," she said to Fullerton, following up with, staff are exhausted, families are frightened and our seniors are left vulnerable."
Hamilton public health reported three new COVID deaths Tuesday - two from outbreaks in seniors' homes. It brings the city's death toll to 81 or three per cent of cases.
A death in the community on Nov. 23 was a woman in her early 70s.
The first outbreak death on Nov. 22 was a woman in her late 90s from Idlewyld Manor at 449 Sanatorium Rd. The long-term care home is up to 15 infections.
The Village of Wentworth Heights at 1620 Upper Wentworth St., has now had three deaths in its outbreak after a man in his early 90s died Nov. 23. The retirement home has had 18 residents and staff test positive.
We share in the tremendous grief the families are feeling right now," said Shaw. We have enormous respect for everyone who has been working around the clock for months, but they can only do so much. They need help now. Experts warned for months that without urgent action the second wave of COVID-19 would be disastrous, but this government continues to dither with task forces and studies that you don't listen to while the deaths in long-term care are climbing."
In Hamilton, 30 residents have died in 22 days at outbreaks in seniors' homes from Nov. 2 to Nov. 23.
Our hearts go out to everyone who has been impacted," said Fullerton. As a physician for almost 30 years dealing with life and death and grief, I fully understand. Our government is putting every measure in place ... Our government is the first government to take long-term care seriously and fix a broken system."
Premier Doug Ford announced Tuesday that rapid tests are starting to be used in an attempt to stop the deadly spread in long-term care outbreaks. It's unclear if any Hamilton homes have received the tests that can provide results in as little as 20 minutes, but have questions about their reliability. Some hospitals will also try the tests.
The new rapid tests are game changers," he said.
The city reported 26 new infections Tuesday to bring the number of active cases to 337.
It also inadvertently falsely reported the death of a child. The death of a Hamilton girl under the age of 20 appeared in a published provincial database of compiled daily reported data from public health units on confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 in Ontario.
There was a data entry error by the local public health unit that led to the reporting of a death under the age of 19," Alexandra Hilkene, spokesperson for Health Minister Christine Elliott, said in a statement. The individual has recovered and this will be corrected."
Public health spokesperson Jacqueline Durlov said the error was quickly corrected through a quality assurance check" but the province pulled the data on their end in between data entry and data review."
Hilkene said the data is pulled at the same time every day by Public Health Ontario.
Durlov did not answer why public health didn't alert media or the province about the error when it was found after the time the province pulls the data to publish.
She also didn't explain why it took two and a half hours - until 3:52 p.m. - for public health to acknowledge the reported death was an error in response to a Spectator request for information at 1:19 p.m.
By that time, Hilkene had already responded to the request at 2:45 p.m. to say it was a mistake and no child had died.
We apologize for any concern this may have raised in the community," said Durlov.
She called it rare" for mistakes to be found after the province has pulled the data for publication.
Joanna Frketich is a Hamilton-based reporter covering health for The Spectator. Reach her via email: jfrketich@thespec.com