The Heartland Health Region has restricted visitor access and isolated some long-term residents at the Davidson Health Centre after an outbreak of respiratory illness infected some of its patients.
Dr. David Torr, consulting medical health officer with the Heartland Health Region, said the facility closed its doors to visitors about a week-and-a-half ago after some residents contracted the H1N1 flu virus. He said visitation of its long-term patients has been restricted because they don’t want any further illness brought into the facility and they also don’t want anyone picking up the illness from the facility.
“As soon as the outbreak is under control then we open up (visitor access),” said Torr. “We will notify everybody as soon as we have the situation under control. So far it seems to be resolving pretty well. We’re not having further spread of infection, but we’ve got to make sure our perimeters are covered.”
Torr said all patients that are showing symptoms of H1N1 have been isolated and the other long-term residents are being monitored closely to make sure they don’t contract the illness. He said appropriate precautions have also been taken to protect staff at the facility.
Emergency services at the acute side of the Davidson Health Centre are still providing care during this time, said Torr. He added it is likely the outbreak originated through contact with visitors to the facility and that is probably also the case with the other health centres in the province that have experienced similar outbreaks.
“We don’t have other outbreaks currently within facilities (in the Heartland Health Region), but in the province there is certainly been a number of long-term care facilities already affected by the influenza,” he said.
To deal with the H1N1 concern in the general public, Torr said there is still a limited amount of flu vaccine available in the province and right now health officials are looking at demographics, the pattern of illness and statistics to determine who would receive a shot. He said although 30 per cent of the population has been immunized only around 15 per cent of children under five years have received the vaccine yet they are the ones more disproportionably affected by H1N1, so it is this demographic and pregnant mothers that will be focused on to receive the vaccine.
“Decisions had to be made to get the best bang for the buck with what limited vaccine is available, but the province is working hard at securing more vaccine and we did get an extra stock this week,” said Torr, noting this new batch is still not enough to go out to the general population. “We included also people with immune suppression like cancers and post-transplants and dialysis patients (to receive the vaccine). The province continues to hunt for vaccine and as we get more vaccine in we will keep the population updated on who can access vaccine.”
To read more please see the January 20 print edition of The Davidson Leader.