Members of the SHA hosted a press conference on Thursday to provide clarity on the 4th wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Susan Shaw, Chief Medical Officer, Derek Miller, Commander of Emergency Operations Centre, and Lori Garchinski, Executive Director, Provincial Services in Tertiary Care were in attendance.

Shaw and Miller both commented on this week’s goals for the intensive care units, current conditions in the hospitals, the service slow down, and the effects of vaccinations.

The goal is to have the means to care for 125 ICU COVID-19 patients in the province and care for 350 COVID-19 inpatients. 

“Each week as an emergency operation centre, we look more specifically at what may come over the next 7 to 14 days based on current cases and trends, and we work with our teams on a specific 2-week outlook. This outlook is shared internally, so teams know what space and staff we need ready for when we anticipate that demand. Then we monitor what is happening across the province to evolve our plans needed for the next week. That is how our projections work and why they are shared in various forms. It is really a planning tool to ensure capacity is maintained within our facilities to meet demand,” says Miller.

However, it was also said that the numbers fluctuate day by day and continue to be unpredictable.

Currently, 70% of beds in the ICU are occupied by COVID-19 patients, but the SHA says they need at least 50 beds for other medical care needs.

As of September 23rd, there are 84 patients in intensive care, and 58 of them are patients with COVID-19.

Work and supply-demand have been increasing so much that the Jim Pattison Children's Hospital in Saskatoon has offered some space and services to care for adult patients with COVID-19, or other ICU patients.

They made it clear that even though some patients have been taken on by the pediatric centre, patient care for children in the PICU is not being limited.

However, a service slowdown has been in effect since the rise in COVID-19 patients, and doctors say that this slowdown is necessary to ensure spaces and staff can care for COVID-19 patients while also maintaining safe care for their non-COVID-19 patients.

This has led doctors to make tough ethical decisions on what procedures and surgeries need to be postponed.

This slowdown has also led to the freeze in the organ and tissue donation program meaning that if an organ donor dies, no organs would be harvested for donation. 

Shaw also brought up the concern of having burnt-out health care workers.

“If this continues, the life-saving supports all Saskatchewan citizens rely on will be in danger. Highly skilled health care personnel we rely on day in and day out for those services are a finite resource,” says Shaw

A question was also asked about an anticipated shortage of COVID medication and anti-inflammatory medication that may occur within the next couple of weeks and how that’ll affect COVID-19 treatment.

“I do worry, and when you look at finite resources, the medication supply is outside of our direct control, which again makes it even more important that everybody does everything they can to stay safe, to be vaccinated, to wear masks, to avoid large gatherings, to do everything you can do to avoid needing these medications because there is a potential that we could run out and that’s the reality,” says Shaw.

Throughout the conference, all the doctors stressed the importance of getting vaccinated.

It was said that unvaccinated people are 6 times more likely to catch COVID-19, 6 times more likely to be hospitalized, and 12 times more likely to be admitted to the ICU.

It was found that 98% of children who have tested positive for COVID-19 were from homes with unvaccinated parents.

They are hopeful that the current health measures in place will work but current demand hasn’t changed at all.

They were very firm in the fact that if eligible people continue to become fully vaccinated, the demand in hospitals can be controlled.