Doctors at a care home in southern Alberta are working hard to try and contain a gastrointestinal outbreak that has taken a toll on the residents and staff.
Alberta Health Services says that the disease was first found at the Sunny South Lodge in Coaldale on March 18, when staff found a cluster of residents suffering from the symptoms.
They include chills, muscle aches, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach cramping.
Residents say that nearly everyone at the facility has caught the case of norovirus the past three weeks it’s been at the home.
“You just didn’t feel right – everything was wrong. You just wanted to rest a lot,” said Victor Hildebrand, a resident who needed to spend a week at Chinook Regional Hospital after contracting the disease.
Other residents who avoided catching the severe cases of the disease have still suffered under the restrictions put in place at the facility.
“We were supposed to be in our rooms all the time and they brought us our food there, which was okay,” says Anne Neufeld, who was only sick for one day with the illness.
However, other residents are concerned that the outbreak may just get worse again when things return to a regular routine.
AHS says that outbreaks of norovirus are not out of character through the year. They say there are about ten outbreaks at care facilities in Lethbridge area every year.
