16 people died at Ont. nursing home before sick residents were separated from the healthy
Space constraints blamed for delay in separating patients at Pinecrest Nursing Home
An Ontario nursing home besieged by COVID-19 didn't separate healthy from sick residents or staff until after 16 people had died, and two weeks after the home declared a respiratory outbreak, CBC News has learned.
The disease has claimed the
lives of more than a third of the residents at Pinecrest, located in Bobcaygeon, Ont., about 150 kilometres northeast of Toronto. A note last month from the home's administrator said residents had been "isolated into separate areas," but that didn't happen until last week.
Efforts to move people to isolated parts of the nursing home were hampered by space constraints, and private rooms only became available after some of the residents with COVID-19 died, a nurse at the home said.
"That's the reason why we actually have the space now. Because we've lost ... residents," said Sarah Gardiner, who has worked at the Pinecrest Nursing Home for 12 years.
"But before, there really was not the space to do that. It would have been an impossibility, I think."
16 people died at Ont. nursing home before sick residents were separated from the healthy | CBC News