A top doctor with the Horizon Health Network says their main priority during the COVID-19 pandemic is to keep their patients and staff safe.
Dr. Ken Gillespie said they have implemented many changes in their hospitals and health-care facilities to protect those inside of them.
But Gillespie, the chief of staff at The Moncton Hospital, said the public must also help by doing things like social distancing.
“If the public does not adhere to these measures, our health-care system will be overwhelmed and it will be our patients and our staff that ultimately pay the price for the decisions that the public make,” he said.
Gillespie said many hospital patients are already very sick, and it will be much worse if the virus starts to impact them.
He said cleaning staff are working day and night to keep their facilities safe for everyone who is in them.
Meanwhile, an infectious disease specialist says with no vaccine or proven therapy for COVID-19, the best tool we have is infection control.
Dr. Gordon Dow said the virus is spread person-to-person through respiratory droplets, or through contact with contaminated surfaces. He said the virus can last on surfaces for hours — or even days.
“If it’s a porous surface, it’s about a day. If it’s a plastic or a metal surface, a non-porous surface, probably about three days. Environmental cleaning is incredibly important,” said Dow.
Dow said other infection control measures like hand-washing and social distancing are critical to slowing the spread of COVID-19.
“How can I back that up? Well, we had a measles outbreak in 2019. Measles is more infectious than the SARS-CoV-2. How did we stop that? Well, our Public Health and physicians worked together and they stopped it with infection control,” he said.
Dow said if we do not “flatten the curve”, the health-care system will be overwhelmed and many people will be affected.
