FREDERICTON -- The emergency room at New Brunswick's Campbellton Regional Hospital is set to reopen Wednesday after being closed for 10 days.
After at least 10 health-care workers tested positive for COVID-19 -- and 30 others had to go into isolation for fear they had come into contact with the virus -- the hospital effectively shut down.
On Tuesday, Campbellton Mayor Stephanie Anglehart Paulin said she's relieved that the hospital's emergency department is welcoming patients once again.
During a public meeting Tuesday, Vitalite's CEO Gilles Lanteigne said much of their resources have been focused on the Campbellton area, to help with the outbreak.
At 8 a.m. on Wednesday, the ER will open, and if the area gets the go-ahead from New Brunswick Public Health, it will move to the next phase this Friday.
Patient visits, outpatient care and elective surgeries could begin again on Monday.
"We set ourselves up so that if we have an outbreak in an area, then we can zoom in and do all the testing and contain it," said Premier Blaine Higgs. "Well, we feel we've done that. But having a hospital shut down in the process is not kinda where we feel the protection that we need. So we need protection for the workers because we need them to keep coming."
Campbellton's ER and other services have had to close several times -- even before the COVID-19 pandemic -- because of a lack of staff.
Last week, the premier said 10 civil servants had answered the call to help with the situation in the north, including one from his office.
Thirty-six people, including nurses, paramedics and personal support workers, have been deployed to the long-term care home in Atholville, which has seen at least 14 residents, and six staff test positive for the virus.
Lanteigne mentioned his looming retirement on Tuesday. He's set to retire in October, after five years as CEO. The network's board is now tasked to find his replacement.
