A Hamilton oncologist treated 14 cancer patients Monday before being diagnosed with COVID-19.
Health officials say the 32-year-old doctor started to feel ill while at work at Hamilton's Juravinksi Cancer Centre Monday, reached out to an infectious disease specialist and arranged to be tested for the virus. She had recently travelled to Hawaii, returning home Saturday.
Even though the oncologist treated 14 people, interacted with their family members and colleagues before asking for a test, Hamilton Health Sciences' Physician-in-Chief says she was "highly responsible in her response."
"I don't think there's any sense that this individual did anything other than the right, thing," Dr. Barry Lumb told reporters Wednesday.
Lumb is hopeful that there won't have been transmission of COVID-19 from the oncologist to her patients and colleagues because it was caught early. But he's mindful of vulnerability of cancer patients to other illnesses.
"I think what it speak to is our vigilance now should any of these individuals develop symptoms, that we have an extremely low threshold to bring them in and investigate them," Lumb said.
The 14 patients as well as any family members who accompanied them to the Juravinksi Cancer Centre Monday have been instructed to self-isolate. So have a number of medical staff also working at the cancer clinic that day. Patients who came into contact with those staff members are being contacted and told to keep an eye out for potential symptoms.
Another oncologist working Monday boarded a plane Wednesday before officials were able to share the self-isolation order. It is not clear where she'd been travelling to or whether she will self-isolate at her current location or return home.
The oncologist who tested positive for deadly strain of coronavirus is in isolation at her Burlington home. So is her spouse, a surgeon at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton.
The hospital network tells NEWSTALK 1010 the surgeon had been at work at St. Joe's Charlton campus before his partner tested positive for COVID-19. The hospital says it is reviewing who he had contact with during that period.
While the surgeon is not exhibiting symptoms, he has been tested for the virus and is waiting for the results.