Medical staff at Delta Hospital are dealing with a minor COVID-19 outbreak, but the facility is functioning as usual.
“I can confirm we do have an outbreak on one of the medical units that was declared actually yesterday (Tuesday),” said Petra Pardy, executive-director with Chilliwack, Hope, Fraser Canyon, with Fraser Health.
Patients with COVID-19 are a regular thing in a hospital but what triggers an outbreak is when there’s transmission of the virus between patients, staff or visitors, she added.
However, the hospital is operating as usual although masks and gloves, and hand sanitizing are required if visitors want to enter the acute care unit that’s affected.
Signs at the unit entrance also inform visitors of the outbreak while ambassadors can inform visitors at the hospital entrance. Visitors to those units are also requested not to visit anywhere else in the hospital.
Fewer than 10 people have the infection in the acute care unit.
Patients with COVID-19 are either isolated in a single room, or located in the same wards if there are multiple COVID-19 patients.
Checking for COVID-19, which persists throughout the health system, is ongoing.
“We have learned to live with it. We are adjusting accordingly,” Pardy said. “We are constantly monitoring this, especially when we are in an outbreak situation. That involves enhanced cleaning and checking of staff and patients to ensure numbers are not increasing.”
She said there are no outbreaks within seniors’ homes in Delta.
Fraser Health has a web page that lists the current outbreaks across the health region. See: https://www.fraserhealth.ca/patients-and-visitors/current-outbreaks.
The website also says that an outbreak in an acute care unit may be declared when a staff member or patient is diagnosed with COVID-19 and an investigation shows that transmission most likely occurred in the facility, from another patient/resident, visitor or staff, rather than prior to admission (for patients) or from the community.
Currently, just more than 90 people throughout B.C.’s health care system has tested positive with COVID-19, Pardy said.
