SHA CEO says prolonged period of high cases would prompt field hospital activation

Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Scott Livingstone offered a glimpse Thursday into what it would take to activate the province’s two field hospitals in Regina and Saskatoon to handle COVID-19 patients.

There are about 300 beds between the two locations — one at Regina’s Evraz Place, the other at Saskatoon’s Merlis Belsher Place — with the ability to expand capacity by another 300 or so.

“It would be a step-wise thing, so we would activate them when we’re starting to see the system and hospitalizations creep up,” Livingstone told Gormley.

“If we saw sustained cases — like in those 400-a-day ranges over a week — we would actually start probably thinking about how we would activate them in the weeks to come because that would signal we might need them.”

The capacity offered by the field hospitals would only be used as a last resort, once the health-care system has been overwhelmed. Livingstone said many people describe the use of the temporary hospitals as “wartime measures.”

For patients who end up there, the care would not be the same as what would be offered under normal circumstances.

Livingstone said staffing those beds would require diverting resources from elsewhere in the system and focusing solely on COVID-19.

“We’re not working in our normal care policies or care patterns. The way we would have to treat people would not follow the protocols of (having) a one-to-one nurse-to-patient bed (ratio) because we simply would not have the ability to do that,” he said.

“The only way to staff the field hospitals is to slow down significant services across the entire system and focus solely on the COVID patients in those facilities.”

The system is expected to see more strain in the coming days, as COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths are the result of what has already happened.

Livingstone said the province is seeing a average of more than 200 new cases per day over the past week.

“We are coping by using available resources across the province and distributing the hospitalization, as much as they can, within existing resources and existing expertise,” he said.

Since the first wave, the province has resumed elective surgical procedures, but Livingstone said the SHA will have to take resources from those areas once again if required.

“We will be carefully looking at what we have to slow down for periods of time, directed slowdowns to actually support the COVID response,” he said. “We will need the resources that are currently providing non-COVID services to help support the COVID response simply because we know that, with what’s happening with the lagging numbers, we are going to see an uptick in hospitalizations.”

Livingstone admitted the SHA is “seeing some pressure” at its drive-through testing centres in Regina, Saskatoon and Yorkton due to the number of people seeking testing.

In Regina, lineups outside the facility on the Evraz Place grounds have been affecting traffic on surrounding roads. On Wednesday, the SHA even warned people in line in the afternoon that they might not get tested due to the high volume.

UPDATE (4pm): Due to demand today at the #Regina COVID-19 drive-thru site, we may not be able to see those already in line. We are doing our very best to serve as many people as possible, & ask for everyone’s patience. The drive-thru testing site will open at 1pm on Thursday. pic.twitter.com/W9NWhm124e

— Saskatchewan Health Authority (@SaskHealth) November 25, 2020

The SHA said people could see waits of more than three hours because of the higher demand this week. The site has tested an average of 550 people per day.

The SHA has also said it is going to look at options to deal with traffic delays on Dewdney Avenue.

“We will look at the drive-throughs and are on a regular basis looking at, ‘Should we be extending hours and where is the best time and place to do that?’ ” Livingstone said.

“As you see the traffic coming in over Saskatoon and Regina in particular recently, it’s a signal for us that we have to look at how we redeploy resources to support those centres to be able to expand hours and services.”