WINNIPEG -- Shared Health is investigating a respiratory outbreak reported at a Winnipeg hospital.
Lanette Siragusa, the chief nursing officer with Shared Health, made the announcement during Tuesday’s daily COVID-19 update, noting the outbreak occurred in a medicine unit at Health Sciences Centre.
“Eight staff, and three patients with symptoms have been tested to determine the cause of their illness,” Siragusa said. “A test for COVID-19 was also included.”
Siragusa said it is a “combined group” of health care workers affected by the outbreak, but could not give an exact breakdown of staff.
Siragusa said one staff member and one additional patient without symptoms have been tested. Three of the four patients remain in hospital isolated, while one has been discharged.
All who are awaiting their test results have been sent home to self-isolate for 14 days.
“If we find out that you’ve been exposed, potentially, to COVID-19, we will do the test, we will send you home to await the results of those tests,” said Siragusa. “Depending on if you’re symptomatic or non-symptomatic, you will stay at home until that test comes back. If you’re negative and asymptomatic, you can come back to work. If you are positive and symptomatic, you stay home for the full 14 days until symptoms subside.”
Siragusa said none of the staff who have been testing were working at the hospital while they were symptomatic.
