Hospitals for non-COVID patients only are shown in blue, hospitals for mixed patients are shown in black. (Presentation/SHA)

By Alison Sandstrom

Emergency preparedness

SHA explains COVID-19 planning for the North

Apr 9, 2020 | 2:56 PM

The SHA is providing more details about the coordinated provincial response to manage COVID-19 in Northern Saskatchewan.

Yesterday the province released information on plans to create dedicated spaces for COVID-19 patients if there’s a steady increase in cases. Hospitals across the province have been designated for COVID-19 patients only, non-COVID-19 patients only, and mixed.

There are no plans for hospitals exclusively for COVID-19 patients in the North.

“A lot of our facilities were quite large that they serve very diverse populations,” explained Andrew McLetchie, Vice-President Integrated Northern Health Authority, during a press conference on Thursday. “We felt that within those facilities we were able to separate patients and staff effectively to not create cross contamination.”

He said a key part of planning is making sure each group has dedicated resources.

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“We’re also looking at how to do we ensure the flows within the hospitals that ensure that staff and patients aren’t connecting with each other in parts of the building where we would risk infection,” he said.

Planning for ICU transfers

The SHA plans to increase ICU beds in the North from 11 to 131 if needed. Provincial modelling scenarios indicated a plan would be needed in the event of a potential surge as the North would be 68 ICU beds short. In that case, patients would be transferred to urban centres.

“There’s a provincial group looking at critical care pathways in the province and determining the best ways to approach this,” McLetchie said. “Ultimately any patient that is that sick would be transferred by an ambulance with appropriate care staff.”

For patients in remote fly-in communities, McLetchie said both land-based and flight-based EMS would be used.

“We would do our best to address the needs as close to home as possible but as transport is required we would definitely put in place the right people in order to do that,” he explained.

Resources for Northern communities

As for increasing on-site testing capacity in remote and Northern communities, McLetchie said the province is working together with the federal government on the issue.

“I’m not sure the exact timeline but I think it’s in the next week or two they’re hoping to have this sorted out and the equipment on the ground,” he said.

He also said Northern Integrated Health was working with NITHA to address concerns about lack of proper personal protective equipment.

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom