A team of experts from Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) is working hands-on to help curb a COVID-19 outbreak that has claimed four lives at Simcoe Manor in New Tecumseth.
Officials from the Barrie hospital became involved in the management of the Beeton long-term care home on Friday evening after the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit issued an order under the Health Protection and Promotion Act.
“They have an entire team of experts in infection control,” including doctors, nurses and management, said Jane Sinclair, manager of health and emergency services with the County of Simcoe. “We are going to continue to work diligently until we have stopped the virus and ceased any further spread here at Simcoe Manor in Beeton.”
The move, she added, was to quickly add much-needed resources to address the outbreak and bring on additional expertise in infection prevention and control. Despite months of additional precautions, the virus took hold of the facility, resulting in a deadly COVID-19 outbreak, she added.
Last week, county officials said they were "working around the clock" and were actively seeking help to control the facility housing 124 residents. Currently, 34 residents have tested positive for COVID-19 along with 20 staff members and there have been four deaths.
The outbreak was declared Oct. 2 and county officials said they’ve been doing what they can to get all the necessary supplies and resources to manage the additional protocols required to keep the coronavirus out of its four county long-term care homes.
“Our largest outbreak, by far, is Simcoe Manor,” said Dr. Charles Gardner, medical officer of health for the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit. “I would really like to commend the efforts by multiple agencies to come together to assist with this outbreak. It is a serious outbreak.”
RVH president and CEO Janice Skot said hospital officials immediately jumped in when asked to work alongside experts from Simcoe County to move through the outbreak as quickly as possible and protect those living and working at Simcoe Manor.
“We’re obviously focusing on the residents — their safety, their quality, infection prevention control, the standards and working with staff to make sure that we can work through this outbreak as quickly as possible,” said Skot.
RVH is providing leadership from the operations perspective, infection prevention/control, and occupational health and safety. Under the order by the provincial government announced Monday, RVH will be involved with the Beeton facility for 90 days.
It cited emergency funding, regulatory flexibility, staffing support, expanded testing, along with direction and guidance on outbreak management, and infection prevention and control are part of ongoing measures.
The Ministry of Long-Term Care previously has issued three mandatory management orders and facilitated 11 voluntary management contracts between Ontario hospitals and long-term care homes.
Many RVH staff members were on site in Beeton throughout the Thanksgiving weekend.
“They all had plans for the long weekend,” but concentrated on addressing the problem right away, said Skot.
All of Simcoe County’s four homes implemented preventative procedures, early on, said Sinclair. But, she added, the precautions and directions are fluid and change regularly.
This is not the first time RVH has been involved in working with long-term care homes during the pandemic.
Last spring, hospital officials were involved in helping address COVID-19 concerns at Owen Hill Care Community near downtown Barrie, although there was no provincial order involved.
