St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital reported its first COVID-19 outbreak of the pandemic Friday, prompting a plea to the community.
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St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital reported its first COVID-19 outbreak of the pandemic Friday, prompting a plea to the community.
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Three patients in the acute medicine unit on the fifth floor tested positive, hospital president Karen Davies said in a statement. The unit is now closed.
“This recent increasing surge of COVID-19 cases in our community puts our hospital at risk,” Davies said.
“We urge all residents in Elgin County to get vaccinated, follow public health guidelines to keep yourselves and each other safe and healthy.”
The hospital, she said, is working with Southwestern Public Health Unit and its infection prevention and control team to monitor the situation, and notify patients and staff affected by the outbreak.
Contact tracing and testing is being completed through the unit, Davies said.
Bluewater Health, which is reporting an outbreak affecting six patients on its rehabilitation unit, issued a similar plea this week as a surge in COVID patients threatened to overwhelm capacity at Sarnia’s hospital.
On Tuesday, the hospital said in an open letter to the community it had five times the regular number of staff on sick leave.
“We had to reopen a COVID-dedicated medical unit and have shut down all surgeries, except the most urgent, to redeploy staff to COVD-related care areas,” the letter – signed by Bluewater Health president Mike Lapaine and chief of staff Mike Haddad – stated.
London Health Sciences Center has two active COVID-19 outbreaks. Nine patients in the clinical neurosciences department at University Hospital are infected and there are eight potential cases among staff.
An outbreak in the adult psychiatric intensive care unit at Victoria Hospital has infected fewer than five patients, and 13 staff are potential cases, the hospital reports.
There are also outbreaks in different wings of the Parkwood Institute main building.