With COVID-19 outbreaks happening in long-term-care homes across Ontario and one in Simcoe County at Spencer House in Orillia, other local long-term care homes are working hard to adapt their processes quickly and prepare for the worst.
Jane Sinclair, general manager of health and emergency services with the County of Simcoe sat down with Village Media this week to talk about what has happened since the province declared a state of emergency and how the County of Simcoe is using out-of-the-box thinking to come up with solutions on how to deal with the challenges associated with a pandemic.
“The directives have dramatically changed how we care for our residents,” said Sinclair. “We’ve put in a lot of new requirements to protect our residents, and that’s our main goal. Our senior population is the most vulnerable to COVID-19, so we are making absolutely every effort to ensure their protection and reduce potential transmission of this virus in our facilities.”
“It is not business as usual at all,” she added.
Sinclair said the county has cancelled vacations, absences and leaves at county-owned long-term care and retirement homes for staff members.
“We’ve been working at this for weeks now, anticipating what might come,” she said. “However, we want to support our staff so for exceptional, compassionate reasons we’ll work with individual employees.”
Yesterday, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit confirmed there are 62 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the region, including one in a staff member at an Orillia long-term care facility. The health unit confirmed the worker was infectious while at work, and the long-term care facility – Spencer House – is now considered an outbreak site.
As Sinclair says there is a high likelihood staff will become ill along with residents, that will impact operations at all long-term care homes county-wide.
“We have taken additional measures by offering increased full-time lines to our part-time staff over and above our compliment, knowing that there are a lot of additional procedures we’re putting in place and that there is COVID-19 activity in our communities,” she said.
“We have been trying to be one step ahead of this all along, so a few weeks back we added additional staffing.”
Sinclair said the County of Simcoe’s human resources department has also led a re-deployment plan as part of pandemic planning.
Part of the pandemic plan for the County of Simcoe as a corporation includes a surge plan, where services provided by the county are deemed either time-sensitive or not time-sensitive.
“For example, recreational or museum-type operations... are not time-sensitive,” said Sinclair. “Whereas our Ontario Works or social services, those are time-sensitive.”
Sinclair said the long-term care team has gone through every core function at the homes to determine which roles could be completed by staff from other departments deemed not time-sensitive with transferable skills in order to free up existing nurses and personal support workers to focus on the care only they can provide.
“We’re looking at, if we need to, at some point in the future, re-deploy other county employees that have the skills and can be trained for specific functions to support folks in the long-term care homes,” she said.
“We’re really trying to look ahead at availing as many resources as possible,” she said.
Sinclair said the Ontario government has asked all long-term care homes to put significant screening procedures in place for anyone entering or exiting the homes, including all staff members, to temper the spread of COVID-19.
“We have screeners at our doorways that check every single staff member that comes through the door. They are stopped, asked COVID-19 symptom questions and their temperature is taken,” said Sinclair. “This is now happening whenever staff leave the building as well.”
On March 25, Finance Minister Rod Phillips announced and passed Ontario's Action Plan: Responding to COVID-19, which is the provincial government’s economic and fiscal update. The plan proposed $243 million for surge capacity in the long-term care sector, as well as funding for 24/7 screening, more staffing to support infection control, and supplies and equipment.
The County of Simcoe will receive $300,000 as part of that announcement. As of Wednesday, Sinclair said the county received the first instalment of $150,000 to be split between the four long-term care homes owned by the County of Simcoe, with a matching payment expected in April.
“We are still working with the province in confirming Georgian Residences funding,” she said.
The County of Simcoe operates four long-term care homes: Georgian Manor in Penetanguishene, Simcoe Manor in Beeton, Trillium Manor in Orillia and Sunset Manor in Collingwood.
Sinclair said the workload has been challenging for staff in light of information constantly changing.
“It’s totally team-focused. We have team meetings every day to review the latest information we have about changes in precautions and definitions,” she said. “The biggest thing for us to manage is the enormous amount of information coming at us.”
As of Thursday, 14 residents and the spouse of a resident of Pinecrest Nursing Home in Bobcaygeon had died amid what their local health unit is calling the largest COVID-19 outbreak in the province. The Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit has said at least 24 staff members are also infected at the home.
“Our hearts go out to those residents and staff involved in that,” said Sinclair. “When you have that many staff who can’t come to work, you need to have a back-up plan because you need people who can care for the residents.”
“While we may have too many staff right now, as COVID-19 numbers continue to increase in our communities and more people are off sick, we have people to cover. We won’t be in a position where we’re as vulnerable because we’ve got these contingency plans in place,” she said.
