Three residents of Schlegel Villages die due to COVID-19 outbreak

LTC resident’s family worried amid outbreak Windsor family worried finding out their loved one at the Village of St. Clair has COVID-19. CTV Windsor’s Michelle Maluske reports.

Windsor, Ont. — Three residents at The Village at St. Clair have passed away from COVID-19 following an outbreak at the long-term care facility.

The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit said Thursday that three residents from the same long-term care home have died – a man in his 70’s, a woman in her 80s and a man in his 90s.

Schlegel Villages said in a letter on Wednesday that the home has seen at least 105 cases so far, with 61 resident cases and 44 staff members testing positive.

Schlegel Villages said all team members who are positive are self-isolating at home.

The home saw its first positive case on Dec. 8, now cases are over the 100 mark.

The VP of operations Joanne Potts is also admitting to a “lapse in surveillance protocols” from a holiday event where a staff member dressed up as Santa Claus didn’t use PPE properly.

Potts says disciplinary action is being taken, and re-education of all team members on proper PPE requirements is underway. She says the team member was COVID tested shortly following this event and was negative. Potts added the test results for all but one of the residents have come back, and they are all negative.

Local NDP MPPs are calling on the Ford Government for further intervention at the long-term care home.

Why not reopen the field hospital?

Windsor Regional Hospital officials say they continue to get asked why don’t they just open the field hospital for the Village of St. Clair situation.

The hospital says they have not been asked to use it for the purposes of the Villages of St. Clair, but it is not necessarily an ideal solution as it may be much safer for the residents to treat them where they are, rather than moving them to surroundings they are not familiar with (note that many of the residents have physical mobility issues and others may be suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia).

Another reason noted by the hospital is that LTC facility is a newer one, with good space for care.

By comparison, WRH says they used the field hospital for Heron Terrace residents earlier this year partly because of the physical limitations of space inside their facility and the associated difficulties with separating COVID-19 positive residents without risking spread of the virus to other residents at that home.

In the case of Villages of St. Clair, hospital officials say it may make much more sense to bring the care to the resident, rather than bring the resident to alternate care.

With files from CTV Windsor's Michelle Maluske.