Bed bug-sniffing dogs used at Surrey Memorial
Posted February 10, 2012 9:02 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS1130) – They’re small, they suck your blood, and they’ve been found in one of Metro Vancouver’s largest hospitals. Surrey Memorial has been dealing with a bed bug problem in its lounge areas.
Those areas have now been the target of some intense cleaning.
Roy Thorpe-Dorward with Fraser Health says they brought in some extra help to make everything completely clean. “The cleaners remove any fabric materials that can’t be cleaned. If they can be hot-washed cleaned, the materials can be preserved, but otherwise the cleaners remove them and then they do a top to bottom disinfecting of the room with bleach-style cleaner, and then they have a bed bug dog come in.”
He notes the dogs haven’t found any further signs of the critters. He stresses the little suckers were not found in any of the patients’ rooms.
Thorpe-Dorward speculates it was foot traffic through the doors that introduced the creepy crawlies into the building. “Bed bugs have become increasingly common in the Lower Mainland in apartments and motels and hotels and dormitories and that kind of thing, so they are occasionally brought into the hospital and we have housekeeping plans in plans to deal with them when it happens.”
Surrey Memorial has also been dealing with an outbreak of the Norwalk virus in one of its units.
