Staff shortage amid B.C.'s deadliest COVID-19 care home outbreak: report

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Bernadette Cheung poses for a photograph outside Little Mountain Place, where her grandmother, who passed away, was a resident, in Vancouver, Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021. An inspection of the long-term care home found staffing levels were low and cleaning was inadequate as the virus spread throughout the facility. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

An inspection of a long-term care home that was the site of BC's deadliest COVID-19 outbreak found staffing levels were low and cleaning was inadequate as the virus spread throughout the facility.

The Vancouver Coastal Health inspection report obtained through a freedom of information request says these two issues were corrected while the outbreak was still underway in Little Mountain Place.

Bernadette Cheung filed a complaint that prompted the report after her grandmother died of COVID-19 at the Vancouver home along with 40 other residents.

Cheung says the report doesn't provide details, such as how many staff members the facility was short or how three weeks without adequate cleaning affected the spread of the virus.

The report found that when the outbreak was declared on November 22nd, staffing coverage was sufficient, but as more employees fell sick with COVID-19, staffing levels fell below a baseline.

It says Vancouver Coastal Health redeployed a significant number of staff to exceed the baseline requirements by 20 per cent.

The report also says the cleaning team did not fully comprehend or implement infection control and enhanced cleaning, so the authority deployed a specialized cleaning team on December 13th.

Little Mountain Place referred questions to Vancouver Coastal Health, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

BC's Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie is working on a larger review of COVID-19 in care homes, which she hopes to publish in July.