Over 100 staff at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre off work due to COVID-19

Over 100 front-line employees at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre are off of work as of Tuesday morning, because of screening for COVID-19.

The hospital said it has to wait for patient test results to come back as negative, until employees will be allowed to return to work.

Forty-four of the staff off are due to exposure to a COVID-19 case, while the other 62 met screening criteria, and are away from work.

"If we have staff just being off for what we call minimal symptoms, and our test results are taking three, to four, to five days to get back, that puts us in a tight situation," said Dr. Stewart Kennedy, the hospital's executive vice-president of regional programs, medical affairs and clinical supports at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.

"If public health increases the number of swabs that they're requesting, and ease up the rules for swabbing, that could be a potential problem with our human resources" 

Kennedy said the other concern is if community spread becomes an issue in the city, that would also affect staff.

While staff on 3A, the designated COVID-19 unit do have complete sets of personal protective equipment (PPE), Kennedy said it is impossible to have each staff member don full gear to deal with each potential case of the virus.

"When patients come into the emergency department, they are screened, and if they meet the swabbing criteria, then they are put in as a presumptive case. But, often people who are admitted to hospital, they pass the screen initially, but they develop symptoms while in hospital, and then we do the testing while in hospital."

Kennedy said it is those staff who are exposed to potential cases, who are currently off.

He said the situation could get worse than it currently is. 

However, he said, with the hospital currently operating at about 60 per cent capacity, inpatient units are able to deal with fewer staff. He said at this point, patient care has not been compromised due to the shortage of front line workers.

"It's not at full capacity as of yet," he said, referring to the dedicated COVID-19 unit on 3A.

Kennedy said as of Tuesday morning, there are at least 10 patients on the unit, but only two confirmed cases. One male patient was in the ICU, but had other medical conditions, besides testing positive for COVID-19.

The other patients on the dedicated unit are showing strong symptoms of COVID-19. However, if they do not test positive for the virus, they will be moved to another unit, he said.

While the hospital is nearly half-empty, Kennedy said on average, 30 per cent of the patients at the facility are there for surgical procedures. He said the remaining empty beds can be attributed to fewer people coming to the hospital, and physicians admitting patients who, "require medical attention on a 24/7 basis."

"What concerns me though, is that the backlog, people are waiting at home, suffering at home some of them, not coming to the hospital, I worry about them sort of hanging on for a period of time, and hopefully it's not too late when they get here."