Grand River Hospital announced that it has declared a COVID-19 outbreak on one of its medicine units after five people tested positive for the coronavirus.
The Kitchener hospital says three patients and two staff members have tested positive in 5S, which is the clinical teaching unit.
“We have processes in place to identify individuals with symptoms and initiate protocols to reduce the risk of transmission to others,” Bonnie Camm, executive vice-president of clinical services, said in a statement.
“The safety and wellbeing of our patients and hospital team members is our top priority. We will continue to monitor hospital team members and patients from 5S to ensure that all receive the support they need and we have made further enhancements to limit any potential spread.”
The hospital says that all of the other patients who are or were in the unit who are at GRH have been tested for COVID-19.
At the point the release was issued, all of the received results were negative with all other results expected by end of day Friday.
The hospital says it is reaching out to staff members and former patients who may have been at risk of exposure and it has also implemented a variety of precautions including enhanced surveillance, cohorting of staff and temporarily closing admissions to the unit.
There is one other active COVID-19 outbreak at a hospital in Waterloo Region.
An outbreak was declared at Cambridge Memorial Hospital on Wing B, Level 4, Medicine B Unit on Nov. 13.
The hospital has not said how many positive tests were connected to the outbreak.