One new death as outbreak grows at south Edmonton care home
Shepherd's Care Millwoods continuing-care centre in south Edmonton is reporting an increase of 16 new cases of COVID-19 and one additional death, according to an update posted to the foundation's website on Saturday.
This brings the death toll to eight at the Millwoods facility.
There are now 101 cases of COVID-19 linked to the outbreak at the care centre. Residents have seen an increase of six cases, bringing the total to 60 from last week.
The majority of the new cases are among staff. This brings the total number of staff with COVID-19 to 41, 27 of whom are employed by Shepherd's Care, 10 are placement students or support staff through the facility's service providers and four are employed by Alberta Health Services.
Thirteen staff have recovered so far.
Zachary Tenner, executive director of communications for Shepherds, said they believe all the resident cases are connected to spread before the facility went into isolation on Sept. 23.
"Depending on when they became positive, they may not have gotten a test for five or six days and it takes public health five or six days to report the numbers back to us," he said
"So when you add on the delay from the testing and then the delays to get the results back, that's why we believe the numbers continue to go up a little last week."
Despite staff cases on the rise, Tenner confirmed that AHS had given the facility an exemption from the single-site order.
Under a single-site order, staff can only work at that one facility. But now with the exemption, staff from other facilities can come work at Shepherds in Millwoods as well as at other facilities.
He said the exemption was to make up for the low numbers of staff at the facility due to staff that are sick or isolating.
Tenner said they have been transparent about the outbreak and the new staff coming in are aware of the circumstances.
"Our medical staff are trained for this and I think everyone that goes into health care knows that they may be dealing with an outbreak situation," he said.
"We have AHS staff on hand to help manage the outbreak and make sure there is proper monitoring of hand hygiene and proper use of personal protective equipment."
Shepherd's is holding a public town hall meeting with president and CEO, Shawn Terlson on Monday, Oct. 19, at 6:00 p.m.. Tenner said the town hall is for members of the public, family members and residents to ask questions.
