A sign on a door into a screening area at Oregon State Hospital on Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
Patients on two units at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem have been quarantined following a Covid outbreak.
In an email to all hospital employees Sunday evening, Sara Walker, the hospital’s interim chief medical officer, said the hospital was closing the Leaf 3 and Bird 1 units following “multiple patient positives” for Covid.
Hospital spokeswoman Aria Seligmann said Monday afternoon she did not immediately have a count of the total number of patients who have tested positive or other details.
Hospital units typically house about 20 patients.
“Given the significance of the outbreaks on both (Leaf 3) and (Bird 1), those units have been fully closed and are being treated as (person under investigation)/COVID units for their patients,” Walker wrote.
Walker’s email did not mention any cases of Covid among hospital employees.
The affected units will not take in new patients, and current patients will isolate in their rooms, the email said. Employees working on those units must wear increased personal protective equipment, including a N-95 mask, face shield, gown and gloves, the email said.
Patients who tested negative for Covid are encouraged to wear masks, the email said.
Some patients with symptoms of illness had already been transferred to the hospital’s existing Covid quarantine units, Walker’s email said, while others who tested positive were asymptomatic.
The hospital cares for about 500 Oregonians court-ordered there to receive mental health treatment.
The Salem hospital has had an active Covid outbreak since April 16, according to the Oregon Health Authority’s most recent weekly outbreak report on Dec. 29. That report listed a total of 109 cases at the hospital, with the most recent showing symptoms beginning Dec. 16.
The report counts all cases of Covid at a worksite, even if the people sickened did not have direct contact with one another, and does not differentiate between employee and patient cases.
Seligmann said tests are still pending to determine whether the current outbreak is the omicron variant of the virus, which is more contagious and more effective at sickening people vaccinated against Covid.
Despite most patients becoming eligible for Covid booster shots in late October, hospital administrators delayed offering shots to patients until Dec. 1, prioritizing staff vaccination first.
Seligmann did not immediately have an updated count of the number of patients who had received booster shots.
This story is developing and will be updated.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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