Hospitals Team Up Against SARS; 3,500 Quarantined

May 27, 2003
From Canadian Press

Officials announced a temporary alliance of four hospitals today to deal with new clusters of SARS cases as the number of people quarantined in the Toronto area jumped to about 3,500.

These hospitals will "use their expertise and their leadership in the fight against SARS," Health Minister Tony Clement told a news conference.

The designated hospitals are North York General Hospital, which is the epicentre of the current outbreak, as well as Scarborough Hospital (general site), the Etobicoke campus of the William Osler health centre and St. Michael's Hospital.

"What we are doing is concentrating the treatment and expertise of SARS at these four key sites ... to ensure that we can quickly identify and contain the disease during this new wave of cases," Clement said.

The health minister said this approach would help protect the health-care system from SARS and ensure "that the system overall runs smoothly and efficiently during this flare-up."

The four hospitals will work together to plan for moving patients and establish specialized units with dedicated staffs. As well, they will formalize agreements on staffing, resources and supplies.

Dr. Colin D'Cunha, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, said the number of people quarantined in the province has risen from about 2,200 on Monday to 3,442 on Tuesday.

A region north of the city has been affected by the recent outbreak, with 70 people in the Muskoka-Parry Sound area among those in quarantine.

D'Cunha said there are currently 12 active probable cases of SARS in Ontario. Since the start of the outbreak in March, the cumulative total is 145 probable and 144 suspect cases, while a total of 229 people have recovered and been discharged from hospital.

The newest cluster that came to light late last week includes nine probable and 23 suspect cases.

"There's no evidence to date of community transmission," D'Cunha said.

Altogether, 27 people have died of SARS in Canada.

Earlier today, Clement responded to comments by the province's former chief medical officer of health that hospitals let down their guard against SARS because of political pressure.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," Clement said.

Dr. Richard Schabas had said that in an effort to turn down the volume on SARS following the World Health Organization's travel advisory and to ready the landscape for an expected Ontario election, the province became complacent.

"With the WHO advisory, they realized that they created a problem and so they were too quick to go the other way," he told the Toronto Star. "Then suddenly we flipped 180 degrees from being sort of hyper about SARS to almost being in a complete state of denial about SARS. After the WHO issued its travel advisory, suddenly the attitude was that nothing was SARS."

But Clement said that on May 2, there was a new protocol for form-fitting masks that came out.

"On May 6, we sent a reminder letter to the hospitals on masking and other protections," he said. "So right around the time this was happening, we were still concerned about protection of our health workers and protection of patients.

"I've been the one saying that we've got to remain vigilant and unfortunately, that vigilance missed these cases until it cropped up into the system three weeks later. We've got a lot of questions to answer, all of us together."

Schabas has been an outspoken critic of the Conservative government's handling of public health issues

He stepped down from the top public health position in 1997 in protest over the Tories' failure to heed his concerns about the impact of funding cuts on public health.

Federal Health Minister Anne McLellan, responding today to a question outside the Commons, also said that political pressure did not contribute to the latest round of SARS.

"Absolutely not. As far as I am concerned, everybody acted in complete good faith," she said.

"My understanding is that Dr. (Donald) Low said maybe we let our guard down too early. That doesn't speak to bad faith. That speaks to his assessment of a local public health situation. I don't think there's anyone to blame here."

Low is heading the investigation into the latest outbreak.

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