2 essential health care workers test positive to COVID-19 at Wichita

Wichita Presbyterian Manor’s surveillance testing on Wednesday, November 18, identified two new cases of COVID-19.

The campus tested 135 employees. All employee test results have been received, and the other 133 were negative. Both COVID-positive employees are essential health care workers.

The first employee last worked November 17 in the PATH short-term rehabilitation neighborhood. The second employee last worked November 19 in the health care center. Both employees passed pre-shift screening and wore personal protective equipment as required, and both tested negative in surveillance testing on Monday, November 16.

We have notified the Sedgwick County Health Department. We will test residents again next week and continue twice weekly employee surveillance testing.

These new cases brings our 7-day total to 4 employees. Due to the number of cases at the campus, Wichita Presbyterian Manor is considered a COVID-19 cluster. A cluster is two or more non-household cases of COVID-19 associated with a location during a specified period of time.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requires surveillance testing of all employees, agency employees, volunteers, hospice, lab and therapy providers at our campus to be tested on a frequency determined by our county’s COVID-19 testing positivity rate. Based on Sedgwick County’s positivity rate for COVID-19 tests, Wichita Presbyterian Manor is testing employees twice a week.

The employees are quarantining at home and will not be allowed to work until they meet CDC and KDHE guidelines for when an employee may return to work. Under the current guidelines, symptomatic employees may return to work when at least 72 hours have passed since resolution of the employee’s fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and the employee’s symptoms have improved and at least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared. Asymptomatic positive employees will quarantine for 14 days. Upon the employee’s return to work, we will follow CDC recommendations related to work practices and restrictions.

All residents and employees are encouraged to follow CDC guidelines and best practices as these are continually updated. The community regularly reinforces with all staff that an employee should not report to work if he or she is experiencing symptoms of a respiratory illness or not feeling well.

For more information about Wichita Presbyterian Manor’s response, go to PMMA’s (Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America’s) website, presbyterianmanors.org/media-room.

‍