Updated Long-Term Care Sector Surveillance Testing Strategy
Par FCO
The Ministry of Long-Term Care is updating guidance on surveillance testing in the long-term care home sector and will provide further direction on testing over the coming days to support long-term care homes to enhance efficiency and convenience for staff and homes.
Highlights from this updated guidance include:
- Testing guidelines for staff, essential caregivers and support workers in LTC will be changing for public health unit regions in Orange-Restrict, Red-Control and Lockdown levels.
- Testing will continue every two weeks for staff, volunteers, caregivers and visitors for LTC homes in public health unit regions at the Green-Prevent and Yellow-Protect levels.
Starting next week:
- Staff, essential caregivers and support workers who provide direct care to residents need to be tested for COVID-19 weekly and show proof of a negative test result.
- Support workers who do not provide direct care to residents must verbally attest to having received a negative COVID-19 test result in the past two weeks and not subsequently tested positive.
Read more in the memo from the Ministry of Long-Term Care & the Long-Term Care (LTC) Home Surveillance Testing FAQs.