Fraser Health region closer to full compliance with single site employee orders

SURREY (NEWS 1130) — By Friday, most Fraser Health facilities — still sharing workers– will have to comply with new single employer orders issued last month by Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry.

Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Martin Lavoie says, right now, at least 40 of 141 possible worksites have already complied.

“By the end of this week, all sites will have received their final staffing plan, so by Friday this week, all staff assignments will be completed. Approximately 75 per cent of all long term care and assisted living staff already work in only one site. So the expectation that we have is, once they have their staffing plan, that they implement immediately. By the end of this week, they will have received their staffing plans, so our expectation is, immediately, they will implement their new schedules,” he says.

Lavoie adds, at this point, it’s not clear how many employers have yet to firm up compliance.

“The operators and also the unions need to be carefully reviewing those staffing plans. From there, they need to build the schedules. That should actually be done fairly quickly and then, once the schedules are built, they implement that and then, this is when single site is actually applied,” he says.

In April, Health Minister Adrian Dix reported implementing this protocol province-wide will cost the provincial government approximately ten million dollars a month.

Lavoie says outbreaks at ten long term care and assisted living homes have ended, but clusters are still active at nine sites across the region including Coquitlam’s Dufferin Care Centre where four people have died.