Manor of the Plains reports a COVID-19 positive employee

A non-direct resident care worker at Manor of the Plains who last worked on August 14, has tested positive for COVID-19.

The employee hasn’t worked due to a possible exposure to a significant other who tested positive for the virus. The employee noticed symptoms recently, sought testing and notified the campus of the positive test result once it was obtained.

Manor of the Plains notified the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) Epidemiology Hotline and the Ford County Health Department immediately. Since the employee hasn’t worked in several days and was not infectious when last on duty, no further testing is recommended.

“We’re hoping for a safe recovery and are glad no one else was exposed,” said Jeanne Gerstenkorn, PMMA’s infection preventionist and vice president for health and wellness.

We will continue to follow KDHE, Ford County Health Department, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines to monitor residents in health care and other employees for any signs or symptoms of respiratory illness and signs of COVID-19.

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

The employee is recuperating at home. We follow CDC  and KDHE guidelines in determining when an employee may return to work.  Under the current guidelines, the employee 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.

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