Private care home in Merritt under management of Interior Health Authority
Posted March 23, 2021 6:33 pm.
MERRITT (NEWS 1130) – A care home in Merritt, which had a recent outbreak of COVID-19, is now under the administration of the Interior Health Authority for at least four months.
The Florentine is a 20-bed, privately-run operation that failed two recent inspection reports.
Dr. Albert de Villiers, the IHA’s chief medical health officer, says the current managers were given more than a year to make improvements.
“We’ve put in an administrator, it’s basically one of our own people that we’ve seconded into this position. And they now have four months to work with the facility, work with the staff, the owner, the management to make sure we get things back on track again to provide the proper care,” he explains.
#BREAKING A private care home in #Merritt where a #COVID19 outbreak was just declared over us now under the management of @interior_health.
This, after inspectors found The Florentine is NOT meeting "legislated standards of care for residents."
More details coming @NEWS1130
— Marcella Bernardo (@MBernardoNews) March 23, 2021
He says there are a number of improvements that are still needed.
“Between training and the right education for the staff — all of those things we would look at. And then, we come up with a list of, okay, these are the things that haven’t been met. Each facility is a little bit different and so, it kind of gets to the point where we need to put that administrator in there and make sure all these things are up to speed.”
De Villiers says this decision wasn’t based on the outbreak because most people at the Florentine had already been immunized and only two people tested positive for COVID-19 before it was declared over on Friday.
“The outbreak didn’t really have any direct causation. We were working through the process of the last year or so, so it’s not that the outbreak made it any better or worse. And we have seen outbreaks in other facilities as well that do have good processes in place,” he says.
The newly-appointed administrator is Matt Renfrew, who is currently the manager of another care home in Kamloops.
