Hospital ward on lockdown

A gastrointestinal illness outbreak hit Kelowna General Hospital this week, leaving one ward on lockdown, with no new patients being admitted.

KGH declared the outbreak in the cardiac surgical unit on Tuesday.

“The cardiac department is completely shut down,” Rick Valenti said Wednesday. “They’re not letting anybody out, and I’m telling them I’m leaving, I’m not sick, and they said I can’t leave.”

Valenti, who underwent open heart surgery last week, called from inside the cardiac department, where he was told not to touch anything, he said.

“I’ve got a big bottle of sanitizer in my hand,” he said. “All the nurses are walking around with masks; they put a mask on me. Everyone else is sick and throwing up.”

Valenti said he had not received much information about the outbreak, expect for signs posted around the ward.

“We’re all scared,” he said. “Something is going crazy here.”

Outbreaks of influenza and gastrointestinal illness are not uncommon this time of year in care facilities or hospitals, said Andrew Hughes, hospital service administrator at KGH.

“When a facility or hospital unit is placed on outbreak, this means a certain number of patients have presented with common symptoms within a limited time,” he said.

Patients with common symptoms are cared for in an area separate from patients who are not symptomatic or who have not been exposed, he said.

Discharge of patients is at the discretion of the physicians responsible for each patient, said Hughes.

“When a physician assesses a patient as being medically well, and as no longer requiring acute care, a patient is discharged.”

In addition to the cardiac surgical unit of KGH, three Interior Health care homes were on outbreak alert in Kelowna Wednesday afternoon for either influenza or gastrointestinal illness: Sutherland Hills Resthome, David Lloyd Jones and Cottonwoods. Brookhaven Care Centre in West Kelowna also reported experiencing a gastrointestinal outbreak.