Two staff members at the Montreal Neurological Institute have tested positive for COVID19 - and at least one of their colleagues says she was kept in the dark about it and told to go to work anyway without being tested or put in self-isolation.
"Mary," a worker at the institute who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from the boss tells yourstory@cjad.com she only found out about the infected staff through co-workers with an official email sent out later in the day Monday.
"Way too late to prevent any contact with co-workers," said Mary.
The only directives given were to stay away from people when she arrived at work, leave early and stay home or until they showed symptoms.
Mary was eventually sent home Tuesday and told to call the internal flu hotline to let them know she was in contact with the infected staff.
She was told a day later to get tested.
The institute would only say in a statement to CJAD 800 the protocols were immediately put in place and everyone in contact with the infected staff was in quarantine as of Saturday.
The institute said that they were notified over the past weekend by MUHC Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) that a staff member had tested positive for COVID-19 and were told on Monday that another staff member tested positive as well. The second staffer was already in quarantine because of close contact with the first colleague.
The institute said that public health officials MUHC OHS took steps to track contacts of affected individuals.
"Everyone in contact with an affected individual was in quarantine as of Saturday, March 21 as directed by Public Health. Currently, The Neuro is not under quarantine and does not have any COVID-19 positive patients. The Neuro is not accepting admissions until further notice. Our partner the CHUM has agreed to admit additional neurology patients in the meantime," said the statement.
Mary said she was definitely not notified on Saturday and was only in quarantine as of Tuesday.
"This was a major fail on their part," she said.