Skip to content

Staff and residents at St. Joseph's long-term care are fine after resident tested positive for COVID

St. Joseph’s Hospital CEO Greg Hoffort is praising the response of staff members in the hospital’s long-term care ward after a resident tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this month.
St. Joseph's Hospital
File Photo

 

St. Joseph’s Hospital CEO Greg Hoffort is praising the response of staff members in the hospital’s long-term care ward after a resident tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this month.

The hospital received notification of the positive test last weekend. The positive test was noted on the COVID-19 section of the Government of Saskatchewan’s website earlier this week.

Hoffort said that a resident was showing symptoms of the virus. The individual was given a COVID-19 test, which was positive. The hospital followed it up by immediately testing all of the residents and staff in long-term care.

“All tests are conducted on-site and then confirmed in the provincial … Roy Romanow Lab,” said Hoffort. “In the case of all staff and all of the residents … they all tested both negative on-site and at the Roy Romanow Provincial Lab.”

The resident who tested positive then had two more tests carried out. Both tests came back negative.

“Our facility has been cleared,” Hoffort said.

Hoffort’s not sure why this person would have had one positive test and then tested negative twice. It could have been a false positive or the positive test could have come at the end of the incubation period for COVID.

The staff members who were most recently working with the resident were off for a few days after the positive test, but now they are back at work after the resident’s two negative tests.

With any patient care areas, COVID-19 protocols are in place at the hospital, Hoffort said.

“It was an impressive response to the staff to the positive test, and in short order we had all of the residents tested and staff tested, and we’re grateful it turned out to be negative. Lots of care homes in the province and our country are going through some terrible ordeals with it, and we’re fortunate that we thus far kept it out.”