Southbridge Roseview vigilant despite death on Wednesday

After two rounds of testing, Southbridge Roseview finally has no new

resident cases of COVID -19. There are still six staff isolating and

recuperating at home.

“We are really hoping that this looks like the end of an active

outbreak that should be coming soon,” said Candace Chartier, the chief

seniors’ advocate and strategic partnerships officer with Southbridge

Care Homes Inc.

“It will be up to public health to declare when we are out of outbreak

and when we have no cases.”

In total 21 residents from the home have passed away since the outbreak

was declared on Nov. 17, one of them on Wednesday.

Chartier says they have reassured families that they are going to keep

doing what they’ve been doing.

“We have seen the numbers coming down and it just attests to the fact

that what we are doing, we are doing right,” she said, adding that

right from the get go, they hit the ground running.”

Chartier outlined the measures that were taken during the outbreak and

in response to compliance orders from the Ministry of Health and Long

Term Care following an inspection conducted at the home in December.

“This is something we have done from day one . . . when a ministry

comes in and they identify anything, we’ve already addressed anything

that they have identified and we are in a really good spot right now,”

she said.

“We brought in 60 extra staff, we had lots of personal protective

equipment, . . . we immediately started working with the hospital,

public health, the Ministry (of Health) and the local Northwest Health

Integration Network. Our epidemiologist that we brought on site

specializes in infection prevention and control and has been a key part

of managing this outbreak.”

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Chronicle-Journal.