Saskatchewan to send six COVID ICU patients to Ontario

One Saskatchewan patient is Ontario-bound and five others are expected to be sent east as COVID-19 numbers continue to worsen in Saskatchewan.

The news came Monday, when the Saskatchewan government also announced a record 85 COVID patients were in the province’s hospitals.

“(The decision) is to ensure that those patients continue to receive the very best possible care that they can and to relieve some of the pressures that we currently have on our health-care system in the short term today in Saskatchewan,” Premier Scott Moe told reporters at the Legislative Building.

During a subsequent technical briefing, Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency president Marlo Pritchard said there were 124 patients in Saskatchewan ICUs — 85 COVID patients and 39 non-COVID patients.

The decision to transfer patients came as a result of “prolonged high demand for critical care” and “capacity challenges that are compromising the quality and availability of critical care within our hospitals,” Pritchard said.

COVID-related hospitalizations in the province have dropped from a record high of 356 on Oct. 6 to 335 as of Monday, but ICU cases have gone from 76 on Oct. 6 to Monday’s record high.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) usually has 79 ICU beds in the province, but that number (including COVID and non-COVID patients) has been ranging from 110 to 118 over the past 10 days.

Doug Dahl with the SHA confirmed in an email Monday that not all of the patients being transferred out of province have COVID.

According to the SHA, one patient was to be moved Monday. The SHA is determining if more out-of-province assistance is required.

“We recognize the stress (moving patients) will cause the families affected,” SHA CEO Scott Livingstone said in a release. “We continue to work every day to maximize capacity to provide care as close to home as possible, but this decision is necessary to maintain the quality of critical care services our patients need.”

The SHA said a clinical team will assess all of the province’s COVID patients daily and match them to “an appropriate available bed.” Patients who are deemed medically stable will be those who are moved, with a care team travelling with them.

The province also will pay travel and hotel costs for two family members or support people for each patient. The SHA’s Derek Miller said Saskatchewan will cover all of the costs associated with the transfer.

A full cost estimate of those transfers wasn’t available due to a variety of factors, Miller said. He estimated the cost to fly a patient out of the province for care alone would run the province about $20,000, not including the costs of their support people.

Request for critical care staff

Currently, Saskatchewan hospitals are most impacted by staffing needs.

“We are strained significantly,” said Miller, adding health-care workers who have been trained in critical care are desperately needed.

Pritchard said the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre has put out requests to much of North America through partners in the Northern Emergency Management Assistance Compact for staff that could be redeployed to Saskatchewan.

That includes Canadian provinces like Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta. States like Illinois, Montana, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Minnesota, Ohio, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Montana, Michigan, North Dakota and Pennsylvania have already indicated they cannot provide resources.

Moe confirmed his government was asking the federal government for assistance.

“While we appreciate any help that the federal government can provide, we are also quite realistic that this will likely not be a large number of staff. But it will be a very specialized grouping of staff that will be required,” said Moe, noting the federal help would mean between two and five more ICU beds.

“(That) isn’t a lot in the scope of 135, but it very much will be appreciated as every bed does count right now,” said Moe.
“Every bed is very, very useful right now and it would prevent us from moving folks out of province.”

The potential has been there for a couple of weeks to ask for federal help, with the federal government offering and the province fielding questions, saying it’s going to look at what’s available in Saskatchewan first. But Moe doesn’t believe that was about reluctance to ask for help.

“It was about structuring that request with all of the partners, including our Saskatchewan operations centre, to essentially bring it forward like we are today,” said Moe.

Responsibility

The need to move patients thousands of kilometres away to Ontario for many marks a new chapter in the province’s situation with COVID.

When asked how much responsibility he and his government bear for the pandemic getting to this point, Moe didn’t give a direct accounting. He talked about working with the health authority and the province’s chief medical health officer on decisions.

Moe also said other provinces have gone through bad bouts with COVID-19 at different times, and then he talked about the masking and vaccine-related health measures brought into force about a month ago.

The premier said as we’re seeing case numbers going down, it’s a good thing his government acted on measures when it did.

“People often say, ‘Is there things you would have changed in your response to the pandemic?’ Potentially we could have moved, possibly, a week sooner with the masking mandate or maybe even sooner with the proof of vaccination policy that we had brought in place,” said Moe.

Moe called whether the government should have done something sooner a fair question, again saying “potentially we should have.”

NDP responds

NDP Leader Ryan Meili issued a statement after Moe’s announcement, saying the patient transfers are a result of the government’s lack of planning.

Meeting later with reporters, Meili stressed the fact that sending patients across the country adds an unnecessary amount of risk to the patients.

“Sending those six patients across the country, and likely more to come, is not the best way to be doing things,” he said. “The risk is higher as you transport people. You’ve got transport teams and staff and equipment that’s used for that when it should be used for other emergencies.”

Meili said the key is to get more care staff in Saskatchewan as opposed to sending patients in the province away.

“The decision that should have been made weeks ago isn’t to start sending people away; it’s to get the staff here on the ground to help people,” he said.

“This was an avoidable situation. But it is the result of a premier who always puts politics ahead of people’s lives.”