Visitation suspended in Saskatchewan care homes

A Saskatchewan doctor hopes new visitation measures will help diminish the spread of COVID-19 in Saskatchewan care homes.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) announced tighter restrictions for care homes throughout the province last week and those measures came into effect Friday.

The new restrictions make it so visitation is only allowed during end-of-life care, or care that requires a family member or loved one to come into a facility.

The original plan was to have the restrictions in place for only 14 days starting Friday, but the SHA followed up on Tuesday by pushing the restrictions into the foreseeable future. There wasn’t a timeline given as to when the restrictions could be removed.

Dr. Nazeem Muhajarine, professor of Community Health and Epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan, hopes the stricter visitation measures will help prevent cases in care homes from spiralling further out of control.

“It’s important to put up a little bit of a perimeter wall around the long-term care home — not a physical wall, but real control restrictions, measures and steps in place to stop the spread in facilities,” Muhajarine said. “We need to eliminate the possibility of the virus getting into these facilities.”

Outbreaks have been declared at a number of care homes in Saskatchewan. During a media conference Tuesday, Premier Scott Moe said COVID had been detected in 20 long-term and personal care homes in the province.

Muhajarine said he is concerned to see cases pop up in care homes throughout the province after seeing the devastating effects COVID has had in care homes in other Canadian provinces.

“It’s a bit concerning that we are seeing this at this late stage in Saskatchewan,” he said. “What that is telling me is that we are not taking enough stringent measures to not bring COVID-19 into long-term care homes.

“I would have hoped that we would all learned how to keep it out.”

Muhajarine says he understands how tough it can be on families to not see some of their loved ones, hoping that people will acknowledge how fatal this virus can be on elderly people.

“We’ve seen so many stories and pictures from other parts of the country and in the world of what can happen if these cases get out of control and it’s a very heartbreaking situation,” he said. “It provides all the more reason to try to get on top of the whole pandemic, particularly in long-term care homes.”