B.C. temporarily pausing long-term care home visits
Posted December 31, 2021 10:22 am.
Last Updated December 31, 2021 9:05 pm.
Visits to long-term care homes in B.C. will be limited to essential visitors as of Jan. 1, 2022.
The new restriction comes a day after active outbreaks at health-care facilities almost doubled in the province.
This measure will be in place until at least Jan. 18, when Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says it and other COVID-19 measures will be reevaluated.
“The illness that we’re seeing, particularly in health-care workers, is starting to have impacts on our health-care system and in our long-term care system,” Henry said.
Henry admits the province has had to bring in similar measures a number of times during the pandemic but says this is best to protect seniors and health-care workers.
“We need to decrease the numbers of people coming into our long-term care homes so that we can best protect the seniors and elders in our care homes and ensure that health-care workers in those settings are able to manage and cope.”
NEW: starting tomorrow restricting visitors to LTC to essential visitors only. DBH says this is necessary to protect the residents and allow health care workers to respond. Will be reevaluated Jan 18th.#bcpoli #covid19 @CityNewsVAN
— LizaYuzda (@LizaYuzda) December 31, 2021
Health Minister Adrian Dix added to this sentiment, saying the restrictions to long-term care was a hard one to make.
“For those of us — such as myself and many others who have family members in long-term care — these are difficult and challenging steps to take but necessary to protect residents in this moment. And we all know the challenges that health-care workers will face in long-term care due to the challenges of the Omicron variant of concern. [Omicron has] moved through populations and health-care workers are not excluded from that,” Dix said.
There are 13 active health-care facility outbreaks.
