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Last month's COVID-19 outbreak at Lions Gate Hospital came with a high price.
Seven patients who contracted the virus during the recent hospital outbreak died of COVID, Vancouver Coastal Health has confirmed.
In a press statement, the health authority expressed "heartfelt condolences" to "families, friends and loved ones impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak at LGH."
A total of 28 patients have died of COVID-19 acquired while in Lions Gate Hospital in three separate hospital outbreaks since the pandemic began last spring.
The most recent COVID-19 outbreak at Lions Gate Hospital was declared officially over on Thursday, a month after it began.
Restrictions associated with the outbreak, which hit two wards on the fourth floor of the hospital, were lifted on May 27 according to Vancouver Coastal Health's website. The affected wards have now reopened to admissions and transfers.
The COVID outbreak at Lions Gate Hospital started April 28 with 16 patients and one staff member identified as testing positive for the virus, some of those through asymptomatic testing on the ward after the virus was first detected.
The number of people infected with COVID while in hospital eventually grew to 36 people, including five hospital staff.
The COVID outbreak was the third to hit Lions Gate since the pandemic started, and coincided with a time when the hospital beds, including critical care beds, were under intense pressure from a high number of COVID patients who became sick with the virus during the spring’s “third wave” of the pandemic.
There has been no indication from VCH about whether any of those who contracted the virus in hospital, including staff, had previously received any doses of vaccine. Most staff at the hospital received first doses of vaccine at the end of December and beginning of January, although there have been cases of people in B.C. becoming ill from the virus even following vaccination.
After the outbreak was first identified, the affected wards were closed to new admissions and transfers, and all non-essential visits were put on hold.
In the previous COVID outbreak at Lions Gate Hospital, in November, 12 people died out of 59 cases linked to the outbreak, which included 31 patients and 28 staff. That outbreak was declared over Dec. 24.
A previous COVID-19 outbreak on the hospital's sixth and seventh floors in April and May of last year saw confirmed cases in 16 patients and 12 staff members, which led to nine deaths, all among patients.
