MYSTERY still surrounds the outbreak of a bacterial infection at a Mount Gambier based aged care facility with the source remaining unknown.
The facility is working closely with health authorities to solve the problem, which led to one resident being hospitalised.
Scrambling the find the source of the salmonella, Boandik has discarded its fresh food as a precautionary measure and investigated all its food handling systems at the Lake Terrace site.
SA Health is planning to send two representatives from Adelaide today to investigate the premises.
Boandik chief executive officer Gillian McGinty said the aged care facility was hoping there would be no more cases of salmonella gastroenteritis.
“We are hoping it is over now, we have not had anybody else present since last Friday,” Ms McGinty said.
“The fact only six people out of 88 who live here have it, shows it is random.”
Ms McGinty said the health and welfare of residents remained the facility’s highest priority.
“We have six confirmed cases of salmonella out of 19 people tested – we have been testing everybody with gastro-like systems,” Ms McGinty told The Border Watch yesterday.
“We have three more tests to be returned, but the others have shown no positive indications of salmonella or a virus.”
Ms McGinty said the source of the salmonella was proving difficult to find and health authorities have investigated the facility’s food processes and storage.
“We have absolutely eliminated all the food that could possibly be the source – we threw it all out, but we set samples off for testing,” she explained.
“All the food came back negative, our equipment was tested and came back negative so SA Health is scratching their head as much as we are.”
According to the facility, health authorities’ initially focused on eggs used at the site, along with cross contamination from eggs.
“That was their focus for a while then fresh vegetables because manure from fertiliser could have been a source.”
The aged care chief said the facility had also been working very closely with the Communicable Diseases Branch in Adelaide in regard to its food service and other precautions.
“They keep suggesting things, we check it out and it comes up negative,” Ms McGinty said.
Interestingly, the facility’s food supplier also supplied its Crouch Street and St Mary sites.
Ms McGinty said one of the biggest problems was the strain of the salmonella was not yet known.
“It takes so long to grow the cultures,” she said.
“If we knew the strain, it would possibly eliminate certain things.”
“SA Health cannot tell us how long that will take.
“The amount of time that it has taken for food samples and samples from residents, and additional cultures to be grown, has been really quite challenging.”
Regarding the condition of the affected residents, Ms McGinty said all were doing well.
“The person who was hospitalised has since come back and the rest of the residents are fine and have not been very ill at all,” she said.
Ms McGinty said those affected are social people who are involved in the community.
“But we cannot identity anything in particular they have all done,” Ms McGinty explained.
