There is a large COVID-19 outbreak at the Chartwell St. Albert Retirement Residences.
An outbreak was declared at the senior home on Hebert Road on Dec. 8, according to Chartwell's website. Four days later, results from asymptomatic testing showed at least 42 residents and 10 staff members had tested positive for COVID-19, according to facility emails sent to families which were shared with the Gazette.
Residents have been isolating in their suites since Dec. 6, and all staff exhibiting any symptoms or with positive results are isolating at home, the email stated. Many of the retirement home's positive cases are experiencing no symptoms, wrote Ola McIntosh, general manager at the facility. The retirement home has suites for independent and assisted living.
"I would like to assure you that we are taking every precaution necessary and following all directives and instructions from Public Health. We are working very closely with Alberta Health Services and have an on-site meeting with them tomorrow morning," McIntosh wrote on Dec. 11.
"We remain committed to keeping our residents and staff safe and I thank you for your cooperation. Together, we will get through this, and we thank you for your understanding."
Health officials are working with the operator to make sure mandatory protocols are in place, including strict infection prevention and control measures, resident and staff screening, and enhanced cleaning measures, said Tom McMillan, Alberta Health spokesperson, in an email to the Gazette.
"It is critical that we continue to protect our seniors, in and out of continuing care. They are at a higher risk of severe outcomes. Regular testing is being offered to all residents and staff to identify cases and limit the spread," wrote McMillan.
The outbreak at Chartwell's St. Albert home is not yet listed on the province's COVID-19 website. The Gazette has reached out to Chartwell Retirement Residence for comment.
The province has listed four current outbreaks in St. Albert, including the Grandin Medical Clinic, Citadel Care Centre, Covenant Health Youville Home, and the St. Albert Retirement Residence. Outbreaks in acute care and continuing care facilities are reported publicly when two or more people test positive for COVID-19, and are declared over when four weeks go by without any new cases, according to the province.
St. Albert's active case count grew by 112 people over the weekend, bringing the number of active cases to 375 people on Monday. The deaths of two more St. Albert residents were reported over the weekend, bringing the official death toll to six, though several COVID-related deaths that occurred at the St. Albert Retirement Residence earlier this fall are not reflected in those numbers. In total, 1,221 St. Albertans have tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Of those, 840 people have recovered.
A St. Albert resident told the Gazette her family pulled her mother-in-law out of the Chartwell retirement home when they found out how much the outbreak had grown within 72 hours. The Gazette agreed to keep her identity confidential due to privacy concerns.
"It went from very few cases to (52 cases) in a really short amount of time, and a lot of the cases actually were asymptomatic, which is a little concerning," she said. Her mother-in-law is in her 70s and has lived at the retirement home for about two years.
"At that point, I think my mother-in-law got very scared. And she's usually not a very scared woman. So we were thinking, what can we do? Is this really the safest place for her to be in? Because we're also concerned about staff shortages."
The family started exploring their options and decided to move her from the retirement home to stay with another family member as a safety precaution, she said. The staff are doing the best they can to stop transmission, she said, but exposure is still likely with that many cases.
Her mother-in-law is much more at ease being in isolation with other family members, though she worries about her friends back at the facility.
"We were very lucky that we did have a place that she could go," she said. "There was a woman who didn't have that option. Their loved one had mobility issues, and they could not take them out of the facility. And I just felt so bad – my heart just broke for them."
She said it was "very disheartening" to hear how quickly the virus spread, because seniors are paying the "biggest price." People who don't take measures seriously, or who are angry that their way of life has been impacted, forget that the more this virus spreads, the more seniors will have to stay in isolation, she said.
"They don't realize that their way of protecting them is keeping them in their rooms, isolated from everybody. It's like solitary confinement," she said. "This has been a long pandemic, and people can start to get too complacent. And unfortunately, this is what will happen."
