A setback for the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre in its fight against COVID-19.
A locum doctor who worked at the hospital recently tested positive for coronavirus, with hospital officials meeting about this issue at 9 p.m. Sunday night.
Dr. Stewart Kennedy suggests over 100 people could be involved in this possible outbreak.
“The total number of people possibly exposed will be determined through the investigation, but is expected to be higher than 100. The physician worked in several areas of the hospital for six days before testing positive,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy says the risk is low in this hospital and they are taking precautions to ensure they have good containment. The locum in question also wore PPE during his time in the local facility.
The hospital’s COVID-19 lead says that all doctors who come from outside of Thunder Bay are tested for coronavirus before they start working in our hospital and this doctor has had a partnership with the local facility since 2004.
The physician, who can’t be named due to privacy regulations, worked in the ICU and other parts of the hospital from May 25th to May 30th. They were taken off work after a declaration of symptoms on May 31st.
Kennedy says they will get priority testing for those employees who were exposed to this physician.
Hospital officials say to ensure the delivery of safe, quality patient care is not impacted, the staff and professional staff tested for COVID-19 as a result of this incident will continue to work unless they display or suspect any symptoms.
The potential exposure has caused elective surgeries to be postponed again rather than starting back up this week as hospital officials had originally planned.
Visitation for the time being is limited to only care partners of expectant mothers and guardians of children.
“We are deeply troubled by this incident, which will unfortunately impact many people. Our focus at this time is to contain the spread and protect patients, staff, professional staff and community members,” said Dr. Kennedy. “We are monitoring the situation very closely and remain committed to transparency. Updates regarding this situation will be provided as they become available.”
