British Columbia will hire approximately 500 additional health professionals to increase contact tracing around British Columbia, helping keep communities safe as it continues its coronavirus restart plan.
Contact tracing works by following up with each person who has tested positive for coronavirus to understand who their contacts may be and providing appropriate followup.
Health authorities’ public health teams typically have staff who do contact tracing of communicable diseases as part of their regular work. However, given the scale of the response needed for coronavirus additional supports are necessary.
“As we have seen in recent weeks, strong contact tracing is absolutely crucial when dealing with community outbreaks as we slowly and safely increase our contacts,†said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health.
“Our health-care workers have gone beyond the call of duty during the pandemic, and we are putting out this call to these dedicated professionals to bolster our contact tracing capacity and prepare us for a potential surge of COVID-19 in the fall.â€
Some of these positions will also help to support public health services, such as providing education in communities, and possibly immunizing for influenza and other diseases.
Reducing the number of people with the flu helps alleviate the burden on provincial laboratory testing infrastructure and protects acute-care capacity in B.C.’s hospitals as respiratory illness season approaches this fall.
These positions will be temporary and will be recruited by the Provincial Health Services Authority and the regional health authorities.
This will allow health authorities to increase their local pool of available public health professionals, while also providing a team of people that are available to be deployed throughout the province as needed. The Ministry of Health is working with Health Match BC and the health authorities to manage the recruitment process.
It is anticipated that candidates will begin work in September 2020 and will be employed until the end of March 2021, with opportunity for extension if needed. ■