SHA lays out plans for Regina’s response to COVID-19

The Saskatchewan Health Authority is projecting Regina will be able to handle the surge of COVID-19 based on plans to increase capacity.

In the models it released Wednesday, the SHA showed the Queen City will have enough beds in intensive care and acute care units when the pandemic is at its worst in the province.

The SHA’s projections suggested there will be 211 patients in ICU at the peak, when Regina is expected to have 410 ICU beds available.

Sheila Anderson, the incident commander and executive director of primary health care in Regina, spoke Thursday about the need for such high capacity because it’s not only to meet Regina demand alone.

“We know that we’ll be caring for some patients who live in the southern part of the province in our rural communities that will be required to be transitioned and transferred to our urban sites when local ICU capacity is exceeded,” Anderson explained during a teleconference call.

There are currently 120 ventilators available in Regina with hundreds more on order to be spread across the province based on need.

“We require significant ICU capacity and that will be provided at both the General and the Pasqua Hospital,” Anderson said, “and as our ICU beds increase, we will need to expand our services out to Wascana Rehab and into our field hospital as well.”

As for acute care, the model projected there would be 732 patients at the peak, with 825 beds available.

The General and Pasqua hospitals would isolate COVID-19 patients in designated units on designated floors while housing non-coronavirus patients on other floors.

Currently there is one ward dedicated for COVID patients at the General but there is a staged and sequenced plan to expand those wards.

“As we see an increased demand of COVID patients, we will be expanding capacity within both our Pasqua Hospital and our RGH. As demand increases, we will be moving toward more dedicated wards and floors to care for our COVID patients,” Anderson said.

“The triggers for how we progress through our plan are really based on the demand for acute care and ICU beds.”

The plans for acute care and potential plans for ICU include 400 beds at a field hospital that would be opened at Evraz Place.

Anderson said the health authority has ordered supplies to set up the field hospital and is in the early stages of figuring out how to use the space.

“We are looking at the International Trade Centre and the soccer centre. They both offer a variety of spaces we could utilize,” Anderson said.

“We’re still confirming how we would best use this site and it’s really too early to say what type of patients would go into that hospital.”

The Wascana Rehabilitation Centre also would become the dedicated hospital for non‐COVID patients, which is why planning is underway to figure out what to do with the current patients who live there.

“We’re working on a plan and assessing patients that are in long-term care at Wascana Rehab. There’s a tentative plan right now we’re working on where we feel that we could safely move approximately 80 patients out of Wascana Rehab and into a different facility that would meet their needs,” Anderson said.

She could not provide firm details at this point about where those alternate facilities might be, saying transfers will only happen if it becomes necessary.

“That plan will only be activated once we start to see an increase in demand and an increase in COVID-positive patients that would be admitted to both the Pasqua and the General hospital,” she said.

Long-term care facilities that are owned by or affiliated with the SHA, as well as community facilities, also would expand their capacity.

The SHA is also looking at recruiting medical and nursing students to help care for patients during the pandemic, but officials could not speak to the possibility of using volunteers.

Anderson said scenario training is underway at all hospitals and health-care facilities to prepare best practices in advance of the pandemic.

Currently the mitigation phase has already ramped up to expand capacity for testing and contact tracing.

“We also opened up an assessment and treatment centre where we provide services for COVID-positive patients, suspected COVID-positive patients or those with COVID symptoms that don’t require acute care but do require some type of care and we’re providing some treatment and diagnostics in a community setting,” Anderson said.

When asked about personal protective equipment for health-care workers, Anderson would only say it is made available to health-care workers “as needed” based on national guidelines. She said she could not specifically comment on the level of supply currently in stock or on order.