Six Sask. patients to be in Ontario by end of day, hospitals still strained

Three Saskatchewan residents have officially been transferred to Ontario to receive medical care.

Another three patients were expected to be transferred by the end of the day Wednesday barring anything unforeseen, according to Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) president Marlo Pritchard.

In response to a statement made by Ontario Health executive vice-president Dr. Chris Simpson that Ontario was prepared to receive a total of 12 patients from Saskatchewan, Pritchard said no numbers have been finalized for further patient transfers for the rest of the week.

“I’m not sure where that number came from,” Pritchard said during a technical briefing Wednesday morning. “What I can say is I can confirm that we had shipped out three, we will be shipping out a further three and that we are planning and continue to assess moving forward.

“That ongoing assessment will continue based on a number of needs. These transfers are the result of a prolonged period of high demand on Saskatchewan ICUs which has an impact on the quality and availability of critical care.”

As of Wednesday, there were 117 people in Saskatchewan ICUs, with 82 of those COVID patients.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority’s Derek Miller said families and patients have received notifications to make them aware patients could be identified for potential transfer.

“We recognize how stressful this is for the families affected,” Pritchard said, adding resources like mental health support and funding for families travelling with patients who are being transferred have been put in place to help.

Transport physicians and intensivists are reviewing patients for transferability based on their clinical situations and other information used in overall decision-making.

Pritchard said partners through the SPSA’s emergency management networks have been responding but the province has not heard of any available resources yet. The province is also still in conversation with the federal government about receiving more perfusionists and ICU-trained nurses.

Pressures on intensive care units in the province are expected to continue for a while, according to Pritchard.

While the province has worked to extend space and resources — including converting former patient rooms-turned-storage at St. Paul’s Hospital into spaces to care of more patients — Miller said space is not the primary limiting factor for hospital care right now.

“At this point, our limitation is really related to those highly skilled, trained staff that are needed in order to actually deliver services in those spaces,” Miller said Wednesday.

He said the strain on health-care staff and ICUs has reached a level where care is being impacted.

In response to the stresses on Saskatchewan’s health-care system, Miller said staff in hospitals have “endured extensive overtime” to meet staffing levels as ICUs have expanded their capacities and dealt with additional stressors and strains.

These include higher patient-to-provider ratios and non-traditional ICU workers providing care.

“We have introduced a lot of change, a lot of additional capacity and this has definitely strained those providers and it’s really a testament to their commitment to delivering services for Saskatchewan residents,” Miller said, adding staff are still working hard in the province’s fourth wave.

Further steps like bringing in nurses trained in critical care, slowing surgeries and deploying around 200 staff to ICUs in the province are ways the province has used — and continues to use — to respond to the COVID demand on hospitals.

“The situation in ICUs has been an extended period working at a very high level of demand for COVID and also continuing to provide care for non-COVID patients that require critical services,” Miller said.