Few hospital staff test positive with COVID-19 in Windsor, Leamington, Sarnia

There are fewer than 30 hospital staff who have tested positive for COVID-19 in Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia-Lambton, and officials say most of those cases can be linked to community spread.

In fact, the only hospital in the three regions to report any employee cases linked to hospital transmission is Sarnia's Bluewater Health. A total of 15 workers, out of the 1,800 staff there, contracted the coronavirus with a third of those getting it at the hospital, and the others through community spread.

An internal review was conducted to determine how those five staff could have gotten COVID-19 at work.

"Many patients that present [at the hospital] don't have symptoms and yet we actually find out several days later they have the virus and they can be spreading virus without even being symptomatic. It's situations like that that occur," said Bluewater Health CEO Mike Lapaine. "It's a very sneaky virus."

All of the employees have been recovering at home, and did not need to be hospitalized. None of those workers have returned to work at Bluewater Health yet. They're awaiting two separate negative test results before that can happen.

Between Windsor Regional Hospital's two campuses, a total of four staff and one physician have tested positive for the coronavirus. It's less than one per cent of the total workforce of more than 5,000. CEO David Musyj said all of them have been traced back to the community.

"[We] stressed to the staff, take care of yourself, make sure you're safe, take your time," said Musyj. "Practice appropriate PPE-wearing, plus donning and doffing that PPE ... take it off properly in a sequential manner that is appropriate and make sure you don't unintentionally expose yourself."

"I'm pretty proud of the staff and what they've done not only to protect their patients and community, but to protect themselves," he said.

All of those employees who tested positive have recovered and did not need to be hospitalized, he said. The last positive case was roughly a month ago. A retired ER physician at the hospital was put on a ventilator, but has since recovered and returned home.

Retired ER doctor wanted to join the front lines against COVID-19, instead he contracted the disease

5 years ago

Duration 2:38

Dr. Dean Favot retired from medicine in 2019. Wanting to join the front lines against COVID-19, he had his medical licence reinstated, but contracted the disease before he could return to work.

And since the curve is flattening and the expected surge never happened, hospital leaders say staff have become more comfortable in the midst of the pandemic.

"Before we got our first case there was a lot anxiety, and there was a heightened sense of the unknown and then a lot of unknown drives fear," said Windsor Regional Hospital Chief of Staff Dr. Wassim Saad. "Now that you have physicians and front-line staff seeing COVID patients every single day, they've become a lot more comfortable with it."

At the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, none of the hospital's 1,200 staff have tested positive for COVID-19.

"We're thankful," said Aaron Ryan, hospital VP of performance and chief financial officer. "We've been putting forth a diligent effort by our staff, all of the protocols people are becoming well aware of with PPE, washing hands, maintaining social distancing."

Leamington's Erie Shores Healthcare witnessed two staff members test positive with COVID-19, who are both at home recovering. Community spread is believed to be the source.

At Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, where they're expected to start accepting recovered COVID-19 patients, a total of three staff members have tested positive for the virus.

The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is reporting 178 healthcare workers tested positive for COVID-19 and 49 of those individuals have recovered. Those statistics include long-term care employees, personal support workers, as well as nurses and other front-line staff.

When it comes to Essex-Windsor EMS and Chatham-Kent EMS, both tell CBC News that no paramedics have tested positive for COVID-19 at this point.