Sask. hopes to soon resume some cancelled health services, including organ donation

The Saskatchewan Health Authority has released a plan that will include the resumption of a variety of health services that were paused across the province as health-care workers were redeployed to help with a surge of COVID-19 patients.

During a provincial COVID briefing with reporters Tuesday, Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency president Marlo Pritchard said resuming organ donation procedures was on the list as well.

“We will make every effort to restart organ donations as much as possible by the end of the month,” he said, “assuming we continue to see ICU cases decline over that time, which will ensure the required hospital capacity.”

The SHA’s Derek Miller said staff that worked in the organ donation program are still deployed to ICU units, and as demand is reduced, staff can go back to their “home” units.

“Ideally we’ll be able to move those people back by the end of November,” he said.

Other staff will also need to be able to move back to help establish operating room times.

“We’re hoping based on the trend that we’re seeing in a slow decline in those hospitalization numbers that there would support a resumption of that programming,” Miller said.

At this point it’s not clear whether there will be extra staff to help out with the backlog of cases.

It’s also unclear at this time how many organ donations have been postponed since the program was halted in late September. Miller says the SHA is looking at any options that might be available to help it work through the backlog and wait lists for surgeries.

Other health services

The plan, according to the SHA, is to have half of the staff who were redeployed across the province back at their “home” positions by this Friday.

Then, by Nov. 19, the goal is to have 75 per cent of staff back, while 90 per cent is the target for the end of the month. The types of services available will depend on the area of the province.

In Saskatoon, returning services include a variety of therapies — especially those for children, neurophysiology and chronic disease management — that should be back up and running by the end of November.

In Regina they’ll include children’s programs, medical imaging, geriatric services, prosthetics, hip and knee surgeries, endoscopy and rehab services.

Fourth wave cases declining

After nearly three month of rapidly increasing COVID-19 cases — Saskatchewan saw a high of 601 cases on Sept. 30 — the number of infections are steadily falling.

Chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab said it’s encouraging to see cases tracking down at a “satisfactory level.”

“If we stay the course … we can hopefully come down, really down, and stay down over December, January and our ICUs will empty out with COVID patients, (with) hopefully most people going home … That is the best outcome,” Shahab said.

But he cautioned that vaccinations must continue, public health measures must stay in place, and people should continue to mask up in public places, or the province could see a fifth wave that would be even worse than the fourth one.

Parts of the province including areas in the far north, Moose Jaw, Estevan, Yorkton and Kamsack are still falling behind in vaccinations, while community transmission remains high.

“I’ve said it again and again: I’m not willing to accept that Saskatchewan should remain forever the province with the lowest vaccination rate,” Shahab said. “I’m not willing to accept that we can use the excuse that we are rural, northern — whatever excuse that you want to invent — that that’s why we will forever remain the least vaccinated province.”

COVID-19 breakthrough cases

According to data on breakthrough infections between Oct. 1 and Oct. 31, there were 10,018 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Of those, 6,790 were unvaccinated or were less than two weeks after their first vaccination.

There were 580 people infected two weeks after their first vaccination, and there were 2,648 cases in those who were two weeks past their second vaccination. One hundred and nine people who were fully vaccinated ended up in the hospital, and of those, 13 needed ICU treatment.

Death counts provided by the SHA weren’t complete.

According to the report, the relative risk of getting the virus remains much higher for those who aren’t vaccinated. Those who are fully vaccinated are six times less likely to get COVID-19, 12 times less likely to end up in the hospital, and 28 times less likely to end up in the ICU.