A third COVID-19-related death has been confirmed at the McKenzie Towne Continuing Care Centre in Calgary.
According to Alberta Health, the 80-year-old man died on Monday.
“This is another tragic case of COVID-19 at its worst,” Alberta chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said Tuesday.
Hinshaw said totals for confirmed cases related to the outbreak at the facility, as well as one other long-term care facility in Calgary and a third in Edmonton, will be released on Wednesday.
Hinshaw said there are outbreak control guidelines for long-term care and continuing care facilities, including any staff who show symptoms aren’t allowed to come to work, residents who have symptoms are immediately isolated in their rooms and officials have testing and identification protocols in place.
“The critical piece of response in that particular outbreak is making sure that everything is done to prevent any further exposure.”
She said staff members who were exposed are allowed to continue working in order to keep the facility operational but they have to wear masks and are prohibited from working at any other long-term care facility during the outbreak.
The man’s death is one of the province’s nine deaths related to COVID-19 as of Tuesday afternoon.
The care centre has seen a growing number of infections of the novel coronavirus since the first cases were reported last week, leading to concerns around the facility’s operation.
Rory Gill, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees — which represents the 150 staff at the long-term care facility — said staff are doing their best to keep people isolated, but said the spread of the virus is “frightening.”
According to Ruth Adria with the Elder Advocates Society of Alberta, a lack of oversight and accountability contributes to the spread of an illness like COVID-19.
“Once one person brings in an infection, there is really very little and [it’s] almost impossible to stop,” Adria said.
“The caregivers go from one elder to another.”
‘Dirty little secret of this sector’
McKenzie Towne Continuing Care Centre does not let its employees move between long-term care facilities.
However, Gill said health-care workers moving between facilities is a problem within the continuing care sector as a whole.
“It’s a dirty little secret of this sector. We represent thousands of workers. We do our best to protect them [but] wages are abysmally low since the privatization of long-term care and for-profit became the norm,” Gill said.
“Some of them have three or four different jobs they move to, to make ends meet.”
Gill said the province needs to issue an order preventing that movement, adding that until then, some facilities will continue to allow people to work at multiple centres.
“Surely to goodness they shouldn’t be moving from facility to facility. Sometimes within one day, a regular worker works [the] day in one home and is working in another at night. It’s not safe.”
Speaking to the media on Monday, Dr. Mark Joffe with Alberta Health Services said officials have looked closely at the idea of restricting health-care workers from moving between facilities.
“We have had to consider what the options may be and whether restricting individuals to working in just one facility is feasible, because if we do that, we might impact the care that individuals in other facilities might receive,” Joffe said.
He said currently, the health authority is not prohibiting staff from working at multiple care centres, but that could change.
“If anyone has any symptoms whatsoever, we expect them to stay home and self-isolate,” Joffe said.
Revera, which runs the McKenzie Towne Continuing Care Centre, said it expressed its deepest sympathies to the family and friends of those who have died as well as other residents and employees at the facility. The company said its thoughts were with the one resident who remains in hospital.
“We have been able to add several staff and we are actively recruiting more staff,” Revera said.
“We are working with AHS to accommodate the extra demands of residents in isolation, which include individually feeding residents in their rooms on overbed trays, engaging residents in one-to-one recreation activities and supporting the enhanced cleaning measures.”
The company said it is keeping in touch with residents’ families so they are updated on their conditions.
Revera said while there is a perception that the virus is spreading in the centre, all new cases are people who have been in isolation within a few days of the first positive test result.
Later on Tuesday, Revera said it was “disappointed” in Hinshaw’s comments, adding it’s been working with AHS since the outbreak started.
“We monitored residents for symptoms and put them on isolation when they presented,” the company said.
“We screened staff and did not knowingly let people work who were symptomatic.”
Revera added that all outbreak control steps that have been taken at the centre are outlined on the company website.
