Relatives asked to monitor residents in outbreak at Golden Links Lodge nursing home in Winnipeg

A COVID-19 outbreak has left a Winnipeg long-term care home so short-staffed, it has asked relatives of its residents to come in and sit by their bedside.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority says 42 of the 81 residents at Golden Links Lodge have tested positive for the virus.

On Thursday night, the home called in paramedics and had some stay at the home throughout the night.

The home also asked residents' families to send one person to sit with their loved one as a monitor for any change in condition.

"We are struggling with staffing as many staff are off sick, reached capacity with picking up shifts, are COVID-19 positive themselves, etc.," reads a note posted by chief executive officer Marcy-Lynn Larner on the home's Facebook page Thursday.

"We are asking the primary caregiver for each resident to consider coming into our home to help care for your loved one. There is risk involved with this and we know that."

The home promised to provide protective equipment for every relative.

WFPS crew on standby

The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service said one patient was taken to hospital, and a paramedic crew remained at the site on standby Friday morning.

At a joint news conference with Mayor Brian Bowman on Friday afternoon, the City of Winnipeg's emergency operations centre manager said crews did full assessments of seven residents at the home, and completed observational assessments of the rest.

Jason Shaw said paramedics and medical staff from the province were dispatched to the home to make up for health-care aides who weren't able to come into work. He said the fire paramedic service will continue to respond to those calls for help from the province whenever it can, though Shaw expressed concerns that solution wasn't sustainable.

Bowman echoed those concerns, noting outbreaks continue to pop up in care homes across the city, meaning staff shortages are becoming more common.

"This isn't the only personal care home in which those resources are stretched very, very thin," he said.

"The problem and the challenge and the real concern is that if we have a really bad night and the queuing [for emergency services] is significant, that's where … safety is on the line."

There have been COVID-19 outbreaks in 27 of the 39 long-term care homes in Winnipeg.

Manitoba has been leading the country in the COVID-19 infection rate per capita, and has enacted strict limits on store openings and public gatherings.