ICU capacity at nearly 100 per cent in Saskatchewan

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) says with the growth in COVID-19 cases in intensive care units in the past month, it is having to escalate its response to the pandemic.

The SHA said Thursday province-wide ICU capacity is at nearly 100 per cent, and in Saskatoon there are only three available ICU beds.

As of Thursday, there were 18 people in intensive care in the province.

In a media release, the SHA says surging to the forecasted peak will require it to create around 200 more beds for COVID patients than currently exist in all the hospitals outside of Saskatoon and Regina combined.

The SHA says with active cases more than doubling in the last month, current surge plans call for the SHA to add staff to enable effective contact tracing to 450 cases per day and possibly more.

To that end, CEO Scott Livingstone says contact tracing has become increasingly difficult.

“Unfortunately over the last month, some of our investigations have revealed that some individuals have as much as 150 contacts for a single positive case … It’s likely we’re going to see increased pressure,” Livingstone said during a media conference.

He says that calculating based on the latest data on average number of contacts, 450 cases per day would create 72,000 hours of work for contact tracers over a two-week span, or an average of more than 5,000 hours per day.

“Scaling up on this level is a significant challenge, so we need the public’s help to ensure we do not face the exponential growth in cases going forward that would strain our ability to scale up on the timelines required. So, we certainly need to decrease both the number of positive cases and contacts if we’re going to get ahead of this virus,” Livingstone said.

He said as an example, surging the ICU capacity by 449 per cent means adding more ICU beds than there are in all four of Canada’s Atlantic provinces combined.

“All on an expedited timeline, while operating under the extreme duress of the pandemic, illustrating the scope of our task if we do not get help from the public,” he added.

The SHA is working with the Public Service Commission on adding staff from the province and with the federal government to add staff from Statistics Canada to the SHA’s contact tracing capacity.

According to Derek Miller, the SHA’s executive director of infrastructure management, targeted service slowdowns are being identified for the redeployment of staff to the priority areas of contact tracing, acute care, long-term care and other situations where the spread of COVID creates risk to the SHA’s ability to continue providing essential services.

“If our current trajectory is left unchecked, we would see COVID acute-care demand essentially account for half of all of our acute-care beds across the entire system over the next four to six months,” he said. “Likewise, for the same period, COVID ICU demand would be five times our current total capacity system.”

The SHA has updated the Health System Readiness Plan it first developed in the spring outlining the offensive and defensive strategies being deployed by the SHA.

“With respect to our physical capacity, whether that’s PPE, equipment, the number of beds in the system … the No. 1 thing is having appropriate trained, skilled staff to care for folks,” admitted Livingstone.

However, if there isn’t a meaningful effort from the public as well, there could also be a breaking point where doctors will have to make tough choices about patient care.

“That’s what the risk is with not containing the virus,” Livingstone explained.

With the recent surge in cases, the SHA is reminding the public that the primary factor in enabling the health system to meet the demand created by the COVID-19 virus is actions taken by Saskatchewan residents to stop the spread:

• Physical distancing;
• Washing your hands regularly;
• Limiting your bubble as much as possible;
• Abiding by all public health orders;
• Wearing a mask whenever you are in public indoor settings;
• Staying home if you are feeling even the mildest symptoms as an increasing number of cases are residents going to work when sick; and
• Downloading the Government of Canada COVID Alert App and use it to protect yourself and your loved ones.