So far, the Omicron variant hasn’t made its way into a New Brunswick nursing home during this wave of the pandemic, according to the CEO of the New Brunswick Association of Nursing Homes. However, it has infected lots of nursing home workers.
“There’s a large nursing home in Saint John where they’ve had 30 people test positive using rapid tests and they can’t come to work when that happens, of course,” said Michael Keating, CEO of the New Brunswick Association of Nursing Homes.
In the fall, about 130 nursing home employees were sent home because they were not vaccinated.
While Omicron and its quick transmission is further hurting staffing levels, Keating credits rapid tests for keeping the virus out.
“The employees are being tested with rapid tests before they’re coming into work, so if they are positive they’re not getting into the nursing home, they’re sent home directly. I think that’s one of the keys for why we’ve kept it away for this length of time,” he said.
However, there is concern about their rapid test supply.
“We need to have as many rapid tests as possible…it’s our position that everybody should be tested with a rapid test as they come into a nursing home so we can contain any spread.”
New Brunswick public health is reserving its rapid test supply for symptomatic people between two and 49. Anyone symptomatic aged 50 and above can access a PCR test.
ER doctor concerned for staffing capacity in health-care system
Emergency room physician and disaster medicine specialist Dr. Trevor Jain says most frontline staff are ‘exhausted.’
“Nobody wants the pandemic over more than your acute care services,” he said.
“It’s not just the emergency department. It’s all the health-care workers in the region. Your intensive care unit staff, your nurses, your cleaners, your support staff, your cooks.”
As Omicron creates more staffing challenges, Jain says it’s important to note every person in health care matters and he’s concerned about that capacity.
“Lights, telephone line, a table and a bed in a room – that’s not an ICU bed. An ICU bed is a respiratory therapist, an ICU bed is an intensive care physician, specialized nurses, our cleaners,” he said.
“As Omicron takes off, we’ve seen some jurisdictions with a 30 per cent absenteeism rate…my concern is capacity and capacity is not always structure. Capacity is staff.”
But Dr. Jain doesn’t want people to feel they can’t go to an emergency room either. He says people may have to wait a little longer for care, but wants to assure people that help is there if they need it.
“I hear leaders sometimes say, ‘Oh, this is the first real wave of COVID.’ Well, tell that to the person working the frontline in Atlantic Canada over the last 20 months. It’s not the first real wave of COVID with our processes or procedures,” he said.
“I always tell people, we’re fighting this pandemic as a community and kindness can go a long way.”
