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SERIOUS FEATURES: Marianne Stenberg, manager of the Villa Skaar Valstad nursing home, fears that elderly residents will be further lost to the virus. On Monday, one of the infected died in the nursing home. Photo: Terje Bringedal
The nursing home staff must have done everything they were supposed to do. However, 19 of 23 residents and 13 employees were infected at the same time, without symptoms.
– This is a real nightmare to face. We have closely monitored any symptoms in employees and residents precisely because this is what we feared would happen, says Marianne Stenberg, manager of the Villa Skaar Valstad nursing home. VG.
On Tuesday night, it emerged that 19 of the 23 residents at the Eidsvoll nursing home tested positive for the coronavirus. At the same time, 13 employees of the nursing home also tested positive.
On Monday, one of the infected residents died. Together they have an average age of 78 years.
The infection was only discovered after an employee tested positive. The employee had not been at work with symptoms and was isolated and tested immediately after suspected infection.
Not a single one of the infected residents had signs of symptoms of the virus when the positive samples were known.
This worries the municipal superior.
– These are vulnerable people who do their best to protect themselves, but it has been shown to be very difficult with a virus that is transmitted before symptoms appear, says municipal chief physician Carl Magnus Jensen.
– We must be prepared for the fact that it can become even more serious.
– Has infected violently
VG meets Manager Stenberg at the door of the now closed nursing home. Bring a full infection control kit.
Stenberg says they are now in the midst of every nursing home nightmare today, calling it a desperate situation with many quarantined employees, sick residents and a strict infection control regime.
See more photos in the photo gallery:
ISOLATED: All of the residents of Villa Skaar Valstad are now sitting in isolation in their respective rooms at the nursing home after the virus outbreak became known. Marianne Stenberg says it is the challengers who must explain the situation to many of the elders.
– We were very well prepared, both according to routines, preventive measures, equipment and everything. But we still get it. And it has been very contagious, says Stenberg.
He was surprised when so many tested positive at the same time.
– As neither employees nor neighbors have had symptoms, we do not suspect anything, says the manager.
Now, however, they have started to get worse. His biggest concern at the moment is that the condition of some of the elderly is deteriorating and they will lose more.
– Now we see more coughs, more pain in the body and less appetite among residents, says Stenberg, who has been a nurse and manager for several years.
Tested 70 people in one day
Municipal Chief Physician Jensen was informed of the infection to the employee at the nursing home on the morning of November 4. During the day, two more employees from the same nursing home tested positive.
– No outbreak or problem was recognized in the situation at the time, explains the municipal chief.
However, he immediately decided to test all the employees and residents of Villa Skaar Valstad. In one day, they tested 70 pieces.
In the following days the sad news arrives. A dozen residents tested positive, in addition to several employees. You find it difficult to say how long an infection might have been in the nursing home before it was discovered.
On Wednesday, November 11, a total of 32 employees and residents were infected at the nursing home.
– New cases may still appear due to the incubation time of the virus, explains the municipal chief.
New success in a nursing home
After the infection was discovered in the nursing home, the municipality began to detect the infection from close contacts.
It is later discovered that the staff of the private nursing home Villa Skaar Valstad, have also worked in two other municipal institutions during the contagious period.
Employees and residents of these institutions were quickly quarantined and evaluated.
– Now, two more infected patients and an employee have been identified in a municipal nursing home, the Vilberg health park. It’s a large nursing home with roughly 110 residents, says Mayor Jensen.
Jensen points out that none of the employees or residents of the other municipal institution, Pålsjordet bokollektiv, has been infected.
He emphasizes that the outbreak may simply be due to bad luck and fears that healthcare professionals will refuse to prove themselves if we worry too much about blaming someone or something.
– My impression is that nursing homes have had good routines all the time. However, they have been infected in the nursing home. It can happen to anyone, says Jensen.
FEARS OF SPREAD: Eidsvoll Township Chief Medical Officer Carl Magnus Jensen says the biggest concern now is whether they can limit the infection that has reached the Township’s large nursing home. Photo: Terje Bringedal
Fear of the new variant of the virus
Villa Skaar Managing Director Richard Skaar Thorsrud says employees have occasionally worn face masks since the pandemic broke out.
– All visits to our homes have been blindfolded since March, he explains.
Just before the infection was revealed in nursing homes last week, it was decided in the Villa Skaar emergency group that all employees in all of our homes should wear masks, Thorsrud explains to VG.
However, the municipal supervisor does not believe that it is the use or not of the use of masks that is decisive here.
You think it is difficult to explain how the infection entered and spread so quickly.
– It may have something to do with the fact that they are good at having infection control routines that protect patients, but do not necessarily receive the same care within staff groups, Jensen explains.
– But it can also be a highly contagious and rapidly transmitted virus variant, and that older people have atypical symptoms that make it difficult to detect.
FOLLOW-UP: Villa Skaar CEO Richard Skaar Thorsrud works closely with his employees in the various nursing homes he operates. Here with the professional leader, Aleksandra Saran. Photo: Terje Bringedal
Jensen has now contacted the National Institute of Public Health to take a closer look at the outbreak at the nursing home.
Currently, it is difficult for you to assess what could have been done differently to prevent an outbreak.
– Now we must remember to remind each other about good infection control for patients, but also among employees. I think we got a bit tired of a summer where the only consequence for Norwegians was that we went to Nordmøre instead of Nice.
– It’s a bad reminder of how bad things can go.
