Hospital staff on Montreal's South Shore struggle to contain deadly outbreak

Staff at the Anna-Laberge hospital on Montreal's South Shore have been fighting to contain a COVID-19 outbreak that has killed 15 and infected dozens of others in the past month.

A total of 61 patients and 33 health-care workers have contracted COVID-19 at the hospital, located in Châteauguay, according to the CISSS de la Montérégie-Ouest.

Hospital management declared the outbreak out of control on Feb. 24. All patients who tested positive for the virus were transferred to the hospital's COVID unit.

A Ministry of Health team that specializes in tightening up health measures visited the hospital last week to help improve safety. New rules, many of them temporary, have been implemented.

One of those measures involves having ambulances from Candiac and LaPrairie redirected to Charles-Lemoyne hospital, for now.

There are now systematic COVID screenings of employees and patients, said Jade St-Jean, a spokesperson for the CISSS.

Health-care workers are also expected to wear an N95 mask and medical gown, she said.

"Although the 30-bed COVID unit is still open, there is no longer any admission of COVID patients from the community," St-Jean wrote in an email to Radio-Canada.

4 outbreaks in 5 months

Epidemiological investigations are also underway, she said.

By mid-January, the hospital had already had four outbreaks in five months, with 65 people infected during that time, according to a registry kept by the health ministry.

Now the hospital's management is coming under scrutiny.

Anna-Laberge hospital is situated in a region that is short about 500 nurses. Another 250 staff members have been reassigned, Radio-Canada has learned. 

Dr. Sylvain Dufresne, chair of the Association des médecins omnipraticiens du Sud-Ouest, said staff fatigue is partly to blame for the outbreak.

"There is no longer any joy in the work," said Dominic Caisse, who represents the hospital's health professional union (FIQ). 

Caisse said having so many patients and so few staff on hand has led to members taking sick leave or resigning.

"It's heavy," he said. "The overloading is heavy."