Visitation restricted at Foothills Hospital due to outbreak

CALGARY (660 NEWS) – Alberta Health Services (AHS) has announced visitation is being restricted at Foothills Hospital in Calgary.

AHS said the only exceptions to the restrictions will be made for those in end of life circumstances or pre-approved essential visitors.

https://twitter.com/Tommy_Slick/status/1310659782517207040

About 39 scheduled surgeries are also being postponed at the hospital but emergency surgeries will still go ahead.

The outbreak at Foothills has claimed four lives and infected over 50 people.

Over 130 staff members have been asked to self-isolate since the first cases were found just over two weeks ago.

In an update, Medical Director Dr. Peter Jamieson says they are working hard to maintain services while restricting the spread of the virus.

To stop possible transmission, numerous surgeries scheduled to take place today had been postponed, but Jamieson says they are planning to have them within the next week.

“One of the first things we anticipate is rescheduling those postponed cases.”

He says there are no plans to close off entire service lines because Foothills is crucial for a lot of services.

“We’re in a slightly different situation. In the course of day-to-day activity, we try to balance the load between all of our sites. That’s part of routine business and we’re continuing to do that.”

He says they are still trying to figure out how the virus got into the hospital, with now five units seeing outbreaks.

“It’s pretty clear to us at this point that these outbreaks, other than the cardiac cluster, are not related to each other. We have experts from Workplace Health and Safety, from Infection Prevention and Control and from Public Health working on that.”

An additional three other units are on outbreak watch.

So far, four patients have died with a total of 53 positive cases among staff and patients.

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today