COVID-19 GGH Update April 4
Active Staff Screening starts soon
Just a reminder everyone entering the Hospital must first go through an active screening process as of Monday, April 6. For more details, click here
New and Updated Ontario Health COVID-19 Human Resources Recommendations
Today Ontario Health released updated COVID-19 HR Recommendations for health care workers who work in multiple sites. Specifically, they identify that:
- HCWs working on a suspected or declared COVID-19 outbreak unit, a COVID-19 area within an organization, or an intensive care unit caring for probable or confirmed COVID cases may not be permitted to work elsewhere until the outbreak is cleared, or at the direction of the local public health unit or aligned with infection control practices. Organizational decisions regarding the deployment of resources in these circumstances will be made in a manner that balances the needs of patient care and safety aligned to local conditions.
- Organizations should proactively gather staffing reports to understand how many Health Care Workers (HCWs) maintain employment at multiple sites, in the event that there is a requirement to re-assess and limit HCWs to one organization.
Please stay tuned as we work out how to best implement these measures and work with our partners. Currently, if you are in doubt, please let your manager or director at any facility you work in know if you are working in a suspected or declared COVID-19 unit, a COVID-19 area within an organization, or an intensive care unit caring for probable or confirmed COVID cases.
Updated Recommendation:
On Friday, Ontario Health released a new HR recommendation entitled “Hospital Employee Sick Pay.” At GGH, when it comes to COVID-19, all staff, regardless of whether full-time or part-time, have been paid for their scheduled shifts if they were directed to be tested for COVID-19 by either the Hospital or a Public Health Unit, and paid for any scheduled shifts while awaiting their test results. This new recommendation provides additional information which may have implications for payment of sick time related to COVID-19. More information will follow early next week.
Reporting on COVID-19 activity in staff and patients
Below are the numbers that will be reported with each GGH weekday update. Please note, the numbers change often as information is received from a variety of sources. As of Friday:
| Total number of staff tested to date | 157 |
| Total number of staff with a positive test result to date | 24 |
| Total number of staff with a negative test result to date | 91 |
| Total number of results pending | 42 |
| Number of current in-patients who have tested positive | 4 |