WINNIPEG — Health officials say if cases of Ebola come to Manitoba, the province is prepared.
Health Sciences Centre (HSC) is the designated site in Manitoba for dealing with Ebola patients. If there is a suspected case, HSC has 36 intensive care doctors and emergency physicians assigned to Ebola patients until the end of the year.
“What I’m hoping for is that we never actually have to use it,” said Helen Clark from the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA). Clark confirmed that the risk to Canadians is extremely low.
Potential patients would be assigned four staff, WRHA officials said: one doctor and three nurses. There are 10 isolation rooms at HSC prepared to manage cases.
There are specific protocols in place for emergency workers when it comes to wearing extra personal protective equipment and putting it on and taking it off.
“A lot of these things we do all the time,” said Michael Routledge, chief provincial public health officer. “There’s so much to managing infectious diseases and doing proper infection control that we have expertise all the time.”
There are currently no direct flights from the affected areas to Canada.
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