‘Demoralizing:’ Nurses’ union frustrated with province’s COVID response

Nurses in the province are feeling disappointed and demoralized after Thursday’s COVID-19 update.

Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN) president and registered nurse Tracy Zambory said nurses are “very troubled with the entire news conference.”

Shortened isolation periods and an increased reliance on rapid antigen testing are decisions that Zambory said are concerning. She said the adjustments announced Thursday seem like they’re focused on keeping workers in the health-care system, even when workers are “bent to the point of breaking.”

The emphasis on personal action and responsibility that the provincial government has been advocating since before the holidays is one that Zambory said was used throughout the fourth wave and “crippled” health care in the province.

“A number of people died needlessly because of a wait-and-see attitude,” Zambory said.

Thursday was a day she called troubling with “no proactive move forward.”

“It’s like we learned nothing from the fourth wave that drove our health-care system to its knees and gasping for breath and we haven’t even had a chance to recover,” she said.

“It was a very disappointing, demoralizing day for health-care workers.”

Concerns over false negatives from rapid testing — which could result in further spread of the COVID virus — and the suggestion that people should assume they are COVID positive (or negative) based on rapid testing alone frustrated Zambory.

Though she said rapid tests are a good offensive measure, they shouldn’t be trusted completely.

“I know many people who’ve taken a rapid test and it’s negative in these last number of days and they’ve gone for a PCR test and the test is positive,” Zambory said.

Further, the comment by Premier Scott Moe that the province will lean more heavily on hospitalizations and ICU numbers rather than daily case numbers to determine how the province is faring was troubling to Zambory.

She said she is “very concerned” about the path the province is on and worries for residents.

“Testing and tracing is our best defensive strategy but we’ve put a stranglehold on it,” Zambory added, lamenting the lack of resources allocated to PCR testing and tracing.

She noted the return of kids to schools in the next couple of weeks is one of several issues that would have benefitted from greater government consideration, weighing factors like how many children have been vaccinated and how significant the spread of Omicron has been among children.

The possibility of greater hospitalizations like other provinces have seen alongside the shorter isolation period for people who test positive “run against each other,” she added.

Zambory said it is hard to determine whether the province’s priority is to keep the workforce running or to keep the people of Saskatchewan safe.

With other provinces like Manitoba and Ontario looking to allow COVID-positive health-care workers to continue working and Quebec already allowing some to do so, Zambory is “very troubled.”

“How could we possibly manage COVID if we have health-care workers dealing with some of our most vulnerable patients — the sickest of the sick — and we would allow people who have tested positive into the workplace?” she said.

“The scientific evidence is definitely not there to support that.”

While the province said Thursday that no individual with the Omicron variant has been admitted to hospital in Saskatchewan yet, Zambory is not placated.

“There is no guarantee that people are going to have mild symptoms,” Zambory said. “That’s what we can hope for, but we’re in the business of keeping people safe.”