Important – CVS COVID-19 Update & Port Coquitlam Office Announcement – March 22nd, 2020

Dear Families, Caregivers, Staff and the People We Serve,

I am writing to you tonight to advise that it was recently reported to us that three staff at CVS had been in contact with a person who was in contact with someone at the Dufferin Care centre where someone is infected with the COVID-19 virus. I would like to reinforce that there was no direct contact between our staff members and the confirmed case. We are releasing this announcement to be fully transparent to staff, the individuals we serve and their families.

Once we were advised of this by staff, we proceeded to contact the Ministry of Health and were advised to ask these employees to self isolate for 14 days. One employee attempted to get tested but they were told they were not at high enough risk to be tested. The Ministry of Health also advised us that anyone that has been in contact with these three employees continue with the precautions of frequent hand-washing and social distancing and that no other action is necessary at this time. The staff members have both used the BC Government COVID-19 online assessment tool and are not in the high risk category at this time.

In response to concern over the spread of COVID -19 across our CVS facilities, our leadership team has made the decision to close the Port Coquitlam office. The Port Moody head office will still be operational but we are currently only supporting a small number of individuals at this location and, where there is a need, we are redeploying our staff to provide support in the individuals’ home. We want to thank the cooperation from all families involved during this challenging time. While we understand this situation is not ideal, in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19, we feel that this is the best solution at this time.

As we move to a new temporary model of support for many of the individuals we serve, we would like to remind our staff, individuals we serve and families the importance of being aware of your current health status. If there are any concerns it is important that you get medical advice from an expert by calling your doctor, 811 or 1-888-COVID19 to discuss your risk. You can also go to BC’s online COVID-19 assessment tool by clicking here. There is an alternative self assessment here. Additionally, the Government of Canada has created a guide to provide more information on the differences between self monitoring, self isolation & isolation. To view this guide, please click here.

More information can be found here and employees can get more information from WorksafeBC.

If you have any questions about the information shared above, please contact myself, Linda King or Pete Stone.