A son is wondering how his mother contracted COVID-19 when the Barrie facility where she was receiving treatment said it had many protocols in place to prevent it.
On Feb. 12, Bayshore HealthCare’s rehabilitation and therapy services reported two COVID cases among staff members at the facility, which is located on Blake Street in the city's east end.
The Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit declared an outbreak on Feb. 10, listing it as occurring at Barrie Manor Enhanced Care Community. While the Bayshore facility is adjacent to Barrie Manor, the two facilities share no staff or residents, and there were no COVID-19 cases reported at Barrie Manor.
Late last week, Bayshore HealthCare regional director of operations Stacey Grammick told BarrieToday all 13 patients at the facility had tested negative for the virus. She said their patients and staff have been regularly tested and none of the patients had tested positive at that time.
The health unit has reported one staff and one resident case linked to the outbreak.
Steve Wright said he received a call Monday saying his 80-year-old mother had tested positive after having been in the rehabilitation centre’s quarantine area for two weeks after surgery.
Yesterday, the health unit reported an 80-year-old woman from Collingwood was among the new cases confirmed since Friday. Her case was listed as outbreak-related.
“She broke her femur and was in Collingwood hospital to have it fixed. She was moved to Bayshore two weeks ago and, despite being in quarantine all this time, she has tested positive for COVID-19,” Wright told BarrieToday. “I’m a bit upset to say the least.”
Wright said he started looking up any information on Bayshore that he could from his home in Dartmouth, N.S., but found very little, except for a BarrieToday article published Friday, Feb. 12.
Wright said there needs to be an update so people are aware of the situation, due to how fast the virus can spread and its potentially deadly effects.
“Here in Halifax, we had 53 deaths at the Northwood Manor (a long-term care facility) ... and all of Nova Scotia had 63 deaths,” he said. “It was a sad situation.”
Wright said he has been speaking to his mom twice a day and, since contracting the virus, her saturation levels are fine, as is her blood pressure.
“Her breathing was a little shallow yesterday, but she is doing well other than that,” he said.
BarrieToday reached out again to Bayshore on Tuesday and was told a statement was being out together “soon.”
Grammick emailed BarrieToday on Wednesday morning saying, "Due to patient confidentiality, we are deferring to the Ministry of Health on all of these issues. I have no further information on this."
While Wright understands the pandemic is widespread, he still has questions.
“The sinful part is she was fine when she went in. Her and Dad live together in Collingwood and she has been fine through all of this,” he said.
