A medical “cavalry” is on its way to Cobar to help with a COVID outbreak at the Lilli-ane Brady Village aged care facility.
The nursing home, owned and managed by Cobar Shire Council, went into lockdown last week after a number of residents and staff test-ed positive to COVID.
As of last Thursday, a cluster of four resi-dents were reported to have contracted COVID and by Sunday morning, that number had blown out to 17 residents and eight staff mem-bers who had tested positive.
As of further testing yesterday, 23 of the 34 residents at the Village have now tested posi-tive while nine of their staff of 35 members (across all areas nursing, domestic and admin-istration roles) have also tested positive.
Cobar Shire Council’s acting general manag-er Kym Miller said all staff, residents and resi-dents’ families were made aware of the out-break and are being updated regularly.
“Fortunately all positive residents are being cared for within the facility (apart from one resident who was hospitalized for further treat-ment on Monday),” Mr Miller said.
He said it was concerning however that many of the LBV nursing staff had been decimated by the virus.
“All but one Registered Nurse has tested positive [they usually have four on staff], which is increasingly difficult to manage,” Mr Miller said.
“The staff we have are working tirelessly and well and truly going above and beyond to en-sure that the quality of care to residents has not been impacted.
“Council is doing everything we can to find replacements for them.”
Mr Miller was pleased to report yesterday that the NSW Department of Health had been able to mobilise a team of up to nine health workers to travel to Cobar.
The team will be available to help staff the facility for the next week and a half.
As a result of the outbreak, the Village has been locked down which means that no visitors may enter the facility and residents are unable to leave. Residents are isolating in their rooms and their meals are delivered to them.
Staff are ensuring that residents are still able to accept phone calls and deliveries of treats, newspapers etc. They also encourage families to stay in touch via Facetime.
Staff are also following strict isolation proto-cols to try to minimise risk wherever possible and an “enhanced cleaning” regime has also been implemented.
The situation is being managed by an Out-break Management Team made up of staff from the LBV, the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care, the Western NSW Local Health District and the Aged Care Quali-ty & Safety Commission.
