Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has announced a one-time payment of $2,000 per child to parents of children who have been affected by the E. coli outbreak in Calgary, which has affected more than 300 individuals.
“You’ve got a number of families who are still not able to have their children return [to normal life],” she told a news conference in Calgary on Sept. 15.
“It’s disrupting the family income and we wanted to make sure that if there were additional financial pressures, that we could give a compassionate payment to assist them with that.”
Ms. Smith also called on affected daycare providers to reimburse families for the time their children have been unable to attend the childcare centres.
The premier also announced the indefinite closure of a central kitchen suspected to be connected to the outbreak, and said a review has been ordered of all shared kitchens that serve daycare providers in the province.
“Families are watching in anguish, watching their children suffer from a preventable cause,” an emotional Ms. Smith said.
“They’re enduring extreme stress, afraid of what the outcome will be and how this will affect their child’s health. It’s unimaginable pain, and I’m heartbroken by what these families are going through.”
Of those infected, 12 patients are currently hospitalized. Among them, 10 have been diagnosed with hemolytic uremic syndrome, a severe condition often associated with E. coli infection. Six patients are undergoing kidney dialysis at Alberta Children’s Hospital, as a result.
Dr. Mark Joffe, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, said although the situation is still serious, there is a glimmer of hope.
“We are cautiously hopeful that we won’t see significantly more children with severe illness,” said Dr. Joffe. “I acknowledge, though, that this is of little relief to the parents of those children who remain in hospital, but it may suggest that, while we’re not completely out of the woods yet, we are beginning to see the health impacts of this outbreak start to wane, just a bit.”
Additionally, Dr. Joffe reported 26 “secondary” infections, which occurred as a result of people who became infected by those already sick.
Inspections
Dr. Joffe said the shared kitchen involved had its last routine inspection in April, where several violations were found and addressed.“I can assure you that there were no delays or gaps in inspecting this facility,” he said. “Every food handling facility in the province is inspected at least once a year. … In the case of this facility, it was inspected five times in 2023 directly related to the fact that violations had previously been identified.”
The kitchen was again inspected Sept. 5, after sickened children from daycare providers began showing up at hospitals in Calgary over the long weekend.
“Three critical violations were identified during the inspection on September 5, and these critical violations were different than the violations that had been identified and previously remediated in April,” Dr. Joffe said.
Dr. Joffe said officials have yet to fully identify the source of the infection.
“We know that the source is highly likely to have come from the central kitchen,” he said. “But as I’ve mentioned before, this is an extremely complex investigation and identifying the exact source and how things unfolded is like trying to find a needle amongst a field of haystacks.”
He added that 45 different food samples from the shared kitchen, and from the 11 daycare facilities involved, have been sent for testing, with 19 results back so far, none of which have tested positive for E. coli bacteria.
“We all want answers, and through a methodical, coordinated, and systematic approach, we hope that we'll be able to provide them just as soon as possible,” he said.
Ms. Smith was asked if the shared kitchen would be closed permanently. She responded that she had no definite answer.
“I would say indefinitely means indefinitely. There’s no answer to that yet, until we get to the bottom of the investigation,” she said.
She pointed out that it remains unclear, according to Alberta legislation, who has the authorization to permanently shut down the facility.
“What is the bar that a number of violations has to pass before a kitchen cannot be re-certified? It sounds to me like there’s a bit of a hole in the statute, so that’s one of the things we’ll have to look at,” she said.
Officials have said it is considered the most severe E. coli outbreak in the history of Alberta.
