Nearly 30 people have been directed to get tested for COVID-19 after five nursing students doing a placement at Windsor Regional Hospital tested positive for the virus.
While the students contracted COVID-19 outside of the hospital, it's believed they may have come in contact with 15 staff members and 14 patients.
Director of Infection Control Erika Vitale, says the hospital is taking steps to ensure there's not an outbreak.
"What we did is we looked back to identify what patients these positive students may have potentially come in contact with. So luckily, they are second year nursing students so they only come to the hospital for placement one day a week and they only have about one to two patients. So luckily, their contact with individuals was minimal," she says.
Vitale also told AM800's The Afternoon News that they were able to identify all patients that had direct contact with the students.
"We did identify 14 patients that had direct contact with these students. So we have tested the ones that are currently in house, we still have about eight of them in house right now. We tested those individuals and put them in isolation and the remainder that were discharged, we phoned them and advised them of the situation and asked that they get tested if they have concerns. So many of them did show up at our assessment centre," she says.
Vitale says they're always worried about staff or students who are sick.
"But also hearing that they indicate they've been using the right PPE {personal protective equipment} and have been masking and following our guidelines that kind of eases my anxiety about that," she says. But I would like to just wait and see what our test results show, to make sure that we air on the side of caution, to make sure that individuals are tested and that we have them properly isolated."
As a result, all nursing student placements at Windsor Regional Hospital have been put on hold until further notice.
Staff are also working to deep clean all impacted areas throughout the hospital.