COVID-19 testing for patient being admitted to St. Joseph’s Healthcare
As a precautionary measure we are introducing COVID-19 testing for every patient being admitted to St. Joseph’s Healthcare.
The COVID-19 case count in the community and province is the highest it has been during the pandemic. This increases the risk of admitting patients that are not displaying COVID-19 symptoms, but are infectious to others.
Moving forward:
- All newly admitted patients are to be tested for COVID-19
- Patients will be determined to be high-risk, low-risk and COVID-not-suspected. All are to be tested for COVID-19.
- High-risk are to be tested, isolated, given a full respiratory panel and monitored.
- Low-risk are to be tested, isolated and monitored.
- COVID-not-suspected are to be tested – no isolation.
- Patients who refuse swabbing will be treated as COVID-positive and low-risk.
It is imperative that a COVID test is ordered on every patient admitted to hospital from any setting, regardless of symptoms. Additionally, on Thursday Dec. 30, COVID-19 swabbing will be done for ALL inpatients who did not receive a COVID swab through admission.