It’s been an outbreak with tragic consequences.
Two people dead, 17 infected after COVID-19 made its way into the Saanich Peninsula Hospital.
“We know no patients got it from other patients. So I think we had some patients that had community-acquired COVID and staff with COVID and they had some spread within the hospital,” said Dr. Elin Bjarnason, Island Health Clinical Operations.
Like many outbreaks, Island Health can’t say for sure how the virus got in. But they’re confident, a week and a half into the outbreak, the spread has stopped.
“We don’t believe it’s continuing to spread, so we believe it’s contained,” said Dr. Bjarnason.
They can’t say officially the COVID-19 outbreak is over until a minimum of 14 days after the last positive case, but health officials are hopeful.
Since day one, the outbreak has been reportedly contained to the acute care centre.
A woman, who has a connection with Island Health – and CHEK News has agreed to protect her identity – was in the hospital’s lab when the outbreak began.
“I was watching the news reports closely to see if the area of the hospital that I had visited as part of the outbreak, and I saw no sign that it was,” said the woman.
The Central Saanich resident later developed mild symptoms and brought herself in to get tested as a precaution. There, nurses said she had been ‘flagged’ because she’d been to Saanich Peninsula Hospital.
“The fact that I was identified as flagged, but no one called me, felt wrong,” said the woman.
“I said I had wished someone had told me because I would have put more effort into distancing from my family the last couple of days. The nurse did tell me that I would be getting a call or should have gotten a call. That call never came.”
Island Health, however, says flagged doesn’t mean the same thing as exposed.
“At the point of testing, they would not have been able to identify whether they’d been exposed at the hospital or not,” said Dr. Bjarnason
Regardless, the woman was told multiple times by nurses she should have gotten a call and hopes others in the lab may double-check.
“I hope the other folks that might have been in the lab, if they had any concerns of being exposed, they’ve been contacted,” said the woman.
Island Health is planning on conducting a third round of staff testing in the coming week.
READ MORE: B.C. reports 737 new cases of COVID-19, eight new in Island Health
Kori Sidaway
