Government looking for as many as 500 employees to be redeployed in COVID surge

As COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Saskatchewan and the premier is keeping his hand on the brakes of any new public health orders, the provincial emergency operations centre (PEOC) is preparing for the situation in healthcare to get much worse.

The PEOC is confirming that this week an email was sent to all employees in executive government to gauge how many people would be able and willing to be redeployed to help out if needed.

The centre is also confirming that it’s looking for as many as 500 people, a number, it said, which reflects the goal to identify 10 to 20 people in each health network who could be utilized if needed.

Those who agreed to be redeployed if the need arises, and would be moved to non-medical roles like cooking, cleaning, and administrative duties.

This move is within the surge plan released last week, which laid out broad plans for how a surge in COVID cases in hospital and lack of available healthcare staff would be dealt with, however, no numbers were included in that plan at the time.

Information provided by the PEOC said the government has redeployed employees throughout different parts of the pandemic. And that no employees are redeployed at this time and no decisions on doing that had been yet made.