Saskatchewan restarts organ donation program as staff return to original positions

Saskatchewan is set to resume many of the health-care services it halted as the province shifted employees to deal with a surge in COVID-19 cases in September. 

With case numbers dropping in Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Health Authority says more than 90 per cent of eligible workers will return to their original positions by the end of November. 

That meant organ donation programs resuming in many areas of the province on Monday, according to Derek Miller, executive director of infrastructure management for the SHA. 

Only Saskatoon has yet to return to full service. That is due to staffing vacancies in the region, rather than being related to the shifting of COVID-19 resources. 

"The team is working right now in order to recruit the people into those roles to allow us to fully resume the services as quickly as possible," Miller said during a Provincial Emergency Operations Centre update on COVID-19 Tuesday. 

Other surgical programs, including elective surgeries, endoscopy, ambulatory care and cardiosciences, are ramping up across the province.

Surgeries that require an ICU bed have been prioritized for resumption, officials said. 

As of Nov. 26, 316 of the 396 services that slowed on Sept. 1, have now been fully resumed or partially resumed. 

Planned path 

The resumption of services has been a long time coming. 

Premier Scott Moe announced on Nov. 3 that many of the SHA staff who had been redeployed would be returned to their home positions by the end of the month.

As of Nov. 12, 50 per cent of eligible staff were redeployed to their original positions, according to a timeline provided by the SHA. 

A week later that figure had increased to 75 per cent of eligible staff. 

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Eligible staff are those who will not have an impact on the SHA redeployments that are directly supporting ICUs, certain acute care services, vaccine delivery and critical care in hospitals, according to the SHA. 

The approximately 500 people considered to be eligible include those deployed for contact tracing, testing and assessment, and outbreak management. 

The province says 350 people deployed in the positions exempt from eligibility will remain in place to support surge capacity. 

However, the SHA is finalizing the second phase of it service resumption plan, which would outline how the remaining redeployed health-care workers will return to their normal positions. 

Officials with the SHA and the Ministry of Health did not provide details on how many organs that could have been collected were discarded in the 67 days that the program was halted. 

There were also no answers on how many surgeries had been cancelled or delayed. 

"I don't have specific numbers in terms of any number of specific missed opportunities, but I but I do acknowledge that there has been an impact," said Miller. 

Continuing to monitor 

The province continues to monitor COVID-19 within the province and says it is prepared to adjust its response if necessary.

That includes the emergence of a new COVID-19 variant known as omicron. 

Health Minister Paul Merriman said on Monday that for now, things are business as usual.

Dr. Saqib Shahab, the province's chief medical health officer, confirmed on Tuesday that the province had yet to detect the variant in Saskatchewan. 

He said the province has already communicated with people who have travelled to Saskatchewan from countries in southern Africa subject to enhanced travel measures due to the presence of omicron. 

Shahab said there are about 40 people in Saskatchewan who have travelled from those countries in the past 14 days. About half of them have already provided tests to the province. Results will be processed in the coming days.