THANK YOU!
In case we haven’t said it enough lately, thank you to everyone for making Fairhaven an acknowledged provincial leader in the area of preventing and controlling the Coronavirus. Our Ministry of Long Term Care Inspector was with us for four days and had no concerns and told us that we set the bar high for other facilities.
On that note, I have heard a comment, making the rounds recently, that Fairhaven’s success in preventing an COVID-19 outbreak since the pandemic began, is due more to our geographic location than any efforts, or steps taken, by Fairhaven and its employees. This type of comment is wrong, on so many levels, and essentially discredits and minimizes all of the sacrifices that staff have made, and all of the support employees have given to innovative ways to avoid the introduction of the virus to our Home. This doesn’t “just happen.”
Let’s look at our community situation. It is certainly great that Peterborough Public Health is reporting no active cases right now. There have been recent outbreaks in nearby Public Health catchment areas but we have avoided new cases successfully. We need to ask whether it has always been that way.
As of April 2nd, Peterborough Public Health (PPH) reported 40 confirmed cases in our City. By May 15th, the case count in Peterborough had jumped to 79 with 7059 in our Local Health Integration Network (Local HIN). Caseloads for May 31st (Peterborough – 88, Local HIN – 9181), .June 15th (Peterborough – 93, Local HIN – 10,482), and June 30th (Peterborough – 95, Local HIN – 11,372) continued this upward trend.
During this time, there were 8 separate institutional outbreaks in Peterborough.
To say that we have not had a case at Fairhaven because our building is in a geographic area that has shielded us is simply not true.
It isn’t the community benefiting us; the actions of our staff and Fairhaven have aided the community in containing what was a worsening situation. As the area’s largest Home, we led the way in term of preparedness, staffing levels and commitment to staff cohorting. Without us, the area would have seen more virus spread, more cases and more deaths.
If you hear negative comments about the difference that you, and your Home, have made in the past 120 days, they are clearly wrong and we should all be proud of what we have accomplished.
INFECTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL MEASURES
With the assistance of provincial funding, we are looking at bolstering our infection prevention and control infrastructure before the Fall. Hyper-accurate temperature taking for employees AND visitors, with audio and digital alarms for people failing this screening step, is just one critically effective tool that we are looking at to keep staff and Residents healthy in the upcoming outbreak season. More details to come as we receive them.
Please consider all Fairhaven COVID-19 Employee Bulletins to be official notifications of consultation with the Fairhaven Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee.
Lionel Towns, CPA, CMA
Executive Director
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