Organ donation program up and running; dozens in quarantine after return from southern Africa

The Saskatchewan Health Authority announced Tuesday that, after more than two months on hold, organ donation services in the province had resumed once again.

The program officially restarted Monday. It was suspended in late September after COVID-19 cases surged in the province, mainly because of the Delta variant.

According to the SHA’s head of emergency operations, Derek Miller, the program has only been partially restarted. Miller said there is a staffing shortage preventing the SHA from being able to get the service back to full operation.

“We are working through some staffing vacancies that have (arisen) just throughout this deployment period,” Miller said.

The positions to be filled are with the organ donation program in Saskatoon, specifically.

No information was available on how many potential so-called “missed opportunities” there were, or how many organs were unused because the program was suspended.

Health service resumption

Miller also talked about other health-care services that have resumed.

At least 90 per cent of eligible staff who were redeployed to other positions to address the COVID surge have returned to their initial positions. Staff who supported ICU, acute and vaccine delivery were not included in those numbers.

“So really, the eligible staff refers to those people who were supporting contact tracing, test and assessment centres and outbreak management. And there (were) about 500 people deployed to support those service lines. And at this point, 93 per cent of those 500 have actually been deployed back to their home units,” he explained.

There are still about 350 or so staff supporting COVID cases in hospital.

“Mostly they’re in immunization and ICU,” he added.

Surgeries that require an ICU bed have been prioritized for resumption. In Saskatoon, Miller said 80 per cent of surgeries — including those considered elective like hip replacements, knee surgeries and cataract surgery — have resumed.

In Regina, only 60 per cent of surgeries are back up and running. According to the SHA, there 20 vacant operating room positions that need to be filled, even with staff redeployment.

Dozens of travellers in mandatory quarantine

Chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab said since last Friday, he has been in daily contact with the federal government about the Omicron variant, and the Public Health Agency of Canada has notified 40 people in Saskatchewan that they must self-isolate for 14 days.

All of the travellers had returned from several countries in southern Africa within the last two weeks.

“All 40 are in the process of being contacted. Just under half have already submitted tests and we are awaiting test results. We expect most if not not all to be negative,” Shahab said.

The SHA is ready to begin testing and genome sequencing in case of a positive test result to see if it’s the Delta or Omicron strain. Public Health and contact tracers are on standby to follow up if necessary as well.

“At this point we are confident we will be able to detect and contain any initial Omicron variant detection, but it’s a rapidly evolving situation,” Shahab cautioned. “As you know in Europe, many countries are not just detecting travel-related cases, but also early signs of community transmission.”

Shahab said important information still needs to be gathered, including whether the new variant is more transmissible than Delta, whether it causes more severe infection in those who are unvaccinated, and how well vaccines might protect against the new strain.

COVID-19 vaccine boosters

COVID vaccine boosters have been authorized by Health Canada for anyone over the age of 18, provided they are at least six months out from their second vaccination.

In Saskatchewan, those over the age of 50 in the far north, some health-care workers who were vaccinated during the first three months of this year, and those over the age of 65 are currently eligible for booster shots.

But Shahab hinted that in the coming days and weeks, the age eligibility will likely change.

“We expect to open it up to further age groups in the coming weeks and again, we’ll be communicating that broadly,” he said.

Those in the 50-and-over age groups should watch for announcements in the coming days.