COVID could account for half of acute care beds if trajectory remains unchecked: SHA

If Saskatchewan continues on its current trajectory of COVID-19, the province will face significant issues in hospitals over the next four to six months.

“We would see COVID acute care demand essentially account for half of our acute-care beds across the entire system,” said Derek Miller, the Saskatchewan Health Authority’s executive director of infrastructure management.

Miller made the statement during an update on COVID preparedness within the health-care system on Thursday.

Likewise, he said demand in intensive care units would be five times the current total capacity over the next several months.

During Miller’s presentation, he said the SHA is preparing for a surge of up to 1,324 acute-care patients across the province. In that case, health officials would then draw down resources from other service departments like elective surgeries to create capacity within their existing facilities.

The preparations for ICU patients appears equally stark.

“We have planned for 412 COVID ICU patients,” Miller said. “That number represents a staggering 449 per cent of our current ICU capacity. And going hand in hand with that is 403 (ventilated) patients. And so we have (ventilators) available to meet that number.

“The challenge with this would be the staffing that goes along with meeting all of these requirements.”

In total, there are 613 ventilators available in the province.

Miller added spaces for the potential surge of patients have been identified, including designating some northern and rural hospitals as “COVID-only” while directing patients who need other resources to different hospitals.

Cohorting COVID patients may also be employed to try and limit the spread of the virus.

Additional information was presented to doctors at a town hall meeting on Thursday that indicated over the last 30 days, both hospitalizations and number of active cases were up 400 per cent.

Dr. Jenny Basran, the SHA’s senior medical information officer, says the information presented Thursday doesn’t vary from chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab’s public presentation on Nov. 20.

CKOM requested an interview from the SHA and was provided with a statement. It reads in part:

“The updated modeling shows some early positive signs about the impact of the public health orders of November 19, 2020. These results should be interpreted with extreme caution and may point to the need to go further with public health restrictions.”

Basran added the SHA is currently working on updates to further validate the data and to incorporate the projected impact of the new public health restrictions.

More information is expected to be released by the end of next week.