By Don Urquhart, Times-Chronicle
Oliver’s McKinney Place is the latest long-term care home in the South Okanagan to be hit by a COVID-19 outbreak. Interior Health told the Times-Chronicle that there are a total of 19 COVID-19 cases: 14 residents and five staff.
This comes on heels of an outbreak announced at Osoyoos’ Mariposa Gardens last week.
There are currently seven active cases of COVID-19 at the long-term care portion of the Mariposa Gardens facility, according to Nadia Daniell-Colarossi, spokesperson for Toronto-based Sienna Senior Living, the parent company of Mariposa Gardens.
She noted that the seven people are either asymptomatic or experiencing mild symptoms, “thanks to the added protection of third vaccine doses.” The outbreak was identified on Jan. 18.
Interior Health (IH) has since clarified that of the seven cases, four are residents and three are staff. A spokesperson added there have been no deaths connected to the outbreak. Due to high vaccination rates among residents in long-term care, “we are seeing milder illness among people who are testing positive for COVID-19,” the spokesperson added.
Interior Health said additional infection control measures have been implemented at both facilities including putting a pause on admissions, pausing non-essential visitors, and testing patients and staff.
Non-urgent appointments are also on hold, but urgent appointments may continue. Essential, palliative and end-of-life, and single designated visits may continue,” the IH spokesperson said.
“The team at Mariposa Gardens is working extremely hard to protect residents from COVID-19 and reduce the spread of the virus,” said Daniell-Colarossi. “With high rates of COVID-19 in the community, our teams are staying vigilant and following all infection prevention and control measures to protect residents”.
She added that the facility is continuing to follow rapid testing directives from the province and has implemented additional steps under the guidance of the medical health officer.
These extra steps include providing meals for symptomatic residents in their rooms, one-on-one programming for all residents and frequent health monitoring of all residents with twice daily temperature checks.
“Families of residents are receiving regular communication to ensure they are up-to-date on the situation, and we appreciate all of the support they continue to show,” she said.
Essential visitors are still permitted, all of whom must be fully immunized, wearing masks for the duration of their visit, and they must also test negative on Rapid Antigen Testing before proceeding to the resident’s room for their visit.
Meanwhile at McKinney Place, Interior Health last year ordered a review of “lessons learned” from the outbreak at McKinney long-term care after 17 residents died of COVID over 12 months ago.
The focus of the review was on multi-bed units in long-term care facilities, according to Carl Meadows, South Okanagan executive director of clinical operations for Interior Health.
A total of 55 residents tested positive at the facility out of the 59 who lived there at the beginning of the outbreak in December 2020.
Interior Health previously stated the spread of COVID-19 at the facility was partially due to a lack of single-bed rooms to isolate residents who have tested positive.
With files by Lyonel Doherty
