SHA Continues to Redeploy Resources to Care for COVID Patients

The Saskatchewan Health Authority’s (SHA) Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) is reminding the public to treat health-care care teams with patience and kindness, as the health system continues to respond to growing COVID cases across the province. On Friday, September 17, the SHA announced it was activating its next level of surge response, and this work continues.

“Our ICU and hospital capacity remains under significant strain,” said SHA’s EOC Commander Derek Miller. “Teams continue to focus on slowing elective procedures and non-critical services to ensure we can continue to meet demand for lifesaving supports in light of the unprecedented demand.”

ICU/Acute Care Capacity

Currently, more than 70% of the SHA’s normal ICU space is now taken up by COVID patients. This extreme pressure is the result of a single disease that is largely preventable through free, safe and effective vaccines.

“The tragedy of what we’re seeing is that patients are dying from a preventable disease in our ICUs. We have a vaccine available that exponentially reduces the chance of getting COVID or getting hospitalized, and can create a circle of protection around those we love,” said Dr. Susan Shaw, Chief Medical Officer. “This is not only heart wrenching for the families and friends of these patients, its placing demand on our system that is putting all of our most critical services at risk on a daily basis.”

There are currently 24 additional ICU surge beds available for use in use in Saskatoon, Regina, Yorkton, North Battleford, Moose Jaw and Swift Current to manage patient demand, up from the normal ICU capacity of 79 beds. Work this week included activating pandemic plans that temporarily admit adults under 40 into pediatric intensive care. This is a similar plan that was in place for previous waves, but was utilized sooner than anticipated due to the increasing number of COVID patients.

For care outside the ICU, Saskatoon has surged up 36 adult medicine beds from a previous 21, and Regina is adding a similar 22 spaces. However, these beds are not the only spaces that have surged to respond to growing COVID demands. Across 30 Saskatchewan hospitals, skilled staff are supporting the now over 200 COVID patients in areas that would be typically used for other health care services such as post-surgery care.

Service Slowdowns

In order to create needed hospital capacity for COVID patients, teams are continuing to support emergency and cancer procedures and treatments and cases deemed urgent in the next six weeks. However, elective procedure slowdowns continue across Saskatchewan with an anticipated impact of approximately 800 - 1,000 elective cases/week including inpatient and outpatient surgeries. Non-urgent surgeries affected include hip and knee replacement, tonsillectomy, and inguinal hernia.  Other slowdowns include, but not inclusive of all slowdowns, are as follows:

• Primary care – diabetes education, health counsellors, chronic disease management
• Home care – education, therapies, foot care, wound care, nursing supports
• Population and Public Health – dental health programs, health promotion, sexual health clinics
• Rehabilitation Services
• Cardiosciences, Neurosciences and Respiratory Services – outpatient clinics including heart function and stroke prevention clinics, stress tests, pulmonary function lab
• Maternal and Children’s Outpatient Services – Women’s Health Centre, pediatric outpatients
• Geriatric Services, including respite care
• Dermatology services
• Ambulatory Care – eye centre, cystoscopy procedures, non-urgent endoscopy

Patients with booked procedures that are affected will be directly contacted. Teams continue to work to maintain services for mental health and addictions, and childhood immunizations under the age of 2 remain.

The goal of latest surge plans remains unchanged, with teams creating space and ensuring staffing is in place to care for up to 125 COVID ICU patients along with 350 non-ICU COVID patients. This is in addition to teams needing to maintain safe care for our non-COVID patients in both ICU and acute care. Reaching these latest COVID surge targets is contingent on the availability of the highly qualified personnel required for specialized critical care services.

It is important to note that the number of ICU and non-ICU COVID patients will change frequently throughout the day as patients are admitted or transferred/discharged. For information about COVID-19 patients in hospital and intensive care, we would refer you to the provincial dashboard, which is updated daily.

Patient Transfers

Low acuity patient transfers are underway to support patient flow among all our facilities, involving those who fit established criteria and can be assured of comparable safe care. This will mean individuals may be transferred to facilities that may not match their preference and may not be closest to their home.

Labour Pool and Redeployment

The province’s recent emergency order to address labour mobility in the health care system, in conjunction with service slowdowns, is supporting the goal of redeploying staff to the areas in hospital, as well as within contact tracing for schools and congregate settings and immunization clinics. As staff are identified for redeployment, they need to be trained and orientated first.

Teams also continue to redeploy staff able to support SHA testing sites. The public is reminded that SHA testing sites are prioritizing symptomatic individuals. If you require a negative COVID test in lieu of proof of vaccination, please seek a third-party provider for these test results.

For hospital care, work is underway to secure 28 contract nurses for ICUs from multiple third party providers. The SHA is also working to extend contracts for nurses previously hired for ICU care, and revising these to allow for contract nurses to work in more than one location.

Family Presence

The SHA remains concerned over the growing number of outbreaks in our communities and long-term care facilities.

“We need the public’s cooperation to protect our patients and long-term care residents, and ask that you do not visit when you have any symptoms, even a sniffle,” said Miller. “We want to maintain visitation access for our long-term care residents and our hospital patients. But, as we see individuals visiting when they shouldn’t, we will be forced to further restrict access in an effort to protect our most vulnerable from this relentless virus.”

COVID Immunization

Vaccination remains the most effective way to prevent further community transmission, outbreaks and severe health outcomes related to COVID and its variants.

The SHA continues its work on its own SHA health-care worker vaccination directive, in conjunction with the government employee vaccination mandate announced last week.

Redeployed SHA staff will be supporting an increase public vaccine clinic availability across the province, moving from focused outreach to a blend of bookable, outreach, and walk in vaccine clinics. The goal is to maintain this capacity until October 31st at which time a review will occur. The SHA updates clinic information regularly for both booked and pop-up clinics on the SHA website.

All eligible Saskatchewan residents are encouraged to get their COVID immunization and protect yourself, and those around you.

Get the facts, get immunized and help Saskatchewan Stick IT to COVID and finish the fight.

Watch information with this update shared at news conference here (YouTube) with Saskatchewan Health Authority Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Susan Shaw, along with Emergency Operations Centre Commander Derek Miller, and Executive Director, Provincial Services – Tertiary Care, Lori Garchinski.