Fear inside Northwood as COVID-19 death count climbs

A 90-year-old Halifax man who lives at the centre of Nova Scotia's COVID-19 outbreak is watching neighbours die while fearing the long-term care facility isn't doing enough to protect him. 

Eleven people have died at Northwood's Halifax campus because of the virus, which has now claimed the lives of 16 Nova Scotians. 

"I don't know how we're going to survive all this. I'm just hoping it don't get over here in our tenant's building," Bill Mont, a well-known Halifax businessman, told CBC's Information Morning on Thursday.

Mont is a tenant of the independent living building at Northwood's campus on Gottingen Street, which has four buildings in total. In one building, tenants and long-term care residents live on the same floor. 

Mont doesn't live in the building where tenants are on the same floor as long-term residents, but worries it is an environment where the virus can more easily spread and end up in his building.

He said he's hearing that people who are sick are roaming the halls, a concern also raised by nurses earlier this week.

The CEO of Northwood said staff no longer travel between buildings, including the one where Mont lives, which is not connected to the others. They've also put up physical barriers to keep long-term care residents and tenants separated.

Forty health-care workers were redeployed from the Halifax Infirmary over the weekend to help deal with the crisis at Northwood. But the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union said the nurses don't have enough personal protective equipment and there's no place for them to safely don or remove gowns.

Dr. Robert Strang, the province's chief medical health officer, dismissed those concerns on Wednesday as hyperbole and fear-mongering.

'Big changes have to come'

Mont, who has lived at Northwood for about nine years, said it's a stressful time waiting in his room for news.

"I see them dying off around me and like everybody's calling me and I'm here in my little room here and just hoping I can keep clear of the gang," he said.

Even with reinforcements from the Halifax Infirmary's COVID-19 team, he said things seem to be only getting worse.

"Big changes have to come to this place. It can't continue on like it was and that's the only hope that we have," he said. 

Janet Simm, CEO of Northwood, told Information Morning there's no evidence the virus was introduced to long-term care residents by tenants who live on the same floor, but that it was brought into the facility by several staff who didn't know they were positive.

"We had multiple sources of that introduction," she said. "Those staff are completely devastated by the fact that they had inadvertently, unknowingly introduced this virus into our facility."

Strang said during Thursday's media briefing that the virus was able to spread undetected at Northwood due to "unfortunate circumstances," which included staff working in many areas of the facility.

Simm said before COVID-19 there were discussions about creating more single rooms for long-term care residents, and that work will continue after the pandemic. But she added that tenants who volunteer to live close to their loved ones in long-term care will still be able to do that. 

"Will we be evaluating our model going forward? Absolutely and making changes," she said. "But throwing away something that has been working amazing for 50 years is not something we're contemplating."

Simm encouraged Mont to access resources that are available to residents who are isolating in their rooms. 

"Like all Nova Scotians, we're all very worried," she said. 

There are now 827 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nova Scotia. Of the 55 new cases reported Thursday, 24 are connected to long-term care homes in the province.