Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Scott Livingstone opened a press conference on Nov. 26 by addressing how the province’s rapid rise in positive COVID-19 cases is causing the health authority to escalate its response.
“This has real consequences, both for COVID response but also non-COVID services in the health sector,” said Livingstone. “When our workload increases, particularly when it increases quickly, we are required to redeploy staff and disrupt other services.”
The SHA is reporting a large strain on resources, as high case numbers are requiring increased staff to support testing, contact tracing and providing service care.
COVID-19 in ICUs have increased five-fold over the last month, said a press release, with ICU capacity across the province at over 100 per cent. There are only three ICU beds left empty in the province currently.
If cases reach the forecasted peak, the SHA predicts it will need to create around 200 more beds for COVID patients than currently exist outside of Regina and Saskatoon, increasing capacity by 449 per cent.
A strain on staff is also occurring, continued Livingstone, as the health authority works to support staff cohorting and maintain outbreaks in long term care facilities, as well as redeploy resources when staff have to isolate after potential exposures.
The average number of contacts stemming from a single positive case has decreased slightly as of late, said Livingstone, but contact tracing staff are still seeing an overload of work to keep up with efforts.
Contact tracing staff will need to increase to continue to support the current rate of positive cases, to increase contact tracing efforts to efficiently handle up to 450 cases a day.
The SHA has already been adjusting services as needed to manage the need, including using surge spaces, converting hospitals into COVID-only spaces, and putting a temporary pause on admissions in some areas.
The health authority’s response so far has been working, said Livingstone, but further readjustments to the Readiness Plan are becoming necessary to continue to adjust to the surge.
Targeted service slowdowns are on the horizon, to help redeploy staff to priority areas, and the SHA is in the process of adding more staff to the province’s contact tracing capacities.
“Scaling up on this level is a significant challenge, so we need the public’s help to ensure we do not face the exponential growth in cases going forward that would strain our ability to scale up on the timelines required,” said Livingstone.
Resource redeployment will focus on supporting testing, contact tracing and providing services to vulnerable populations.
The SHA is looking to ramp up testing to provide more than 4,000 tests a day by late December, which could involve drawing in outside organizations or nursing students from the University of Saskatchewan to help with contact tracing efforts.
The health authority also indicated that utilizing the two field hospitals currently set up would only be considered as a last resort, like if cases returned to the 400-a-day range for more than a week.
The field hospitals at Evraz Place in Regina and Merlis Belsher Place in Saskatoon would expand capacity by another 300 beds, if activated.
More information on the SHA Readiness Plan can be found here, and regular updates on service disruptions at SHA facilities are available here.
