Care home residents in Saskatchewan soon can have more visitors

Every resident of every one of Saskatchewan’s long-term and personal care homes soon will be allowed to have more visitors.

On Thursday, the provincial government announced that, starting May 30, all people in long-term and personal care homes will be able to have an unlimited number of visitors, two at a time, indoors. As many as four family members or support people at a time will be able to visit the resident outdoors.

On April 22, the government said visitation at care homes would be tied to the collective COVID-19 vaccination levels of the residents. Those limitations will end May 30, when Saskatchewan reaches Step One of its Re-Opening Roadmap.

Everett Hindley, the province’s minister of seniors and rural and remote health, said during a media conference Thursday that only about 44 per cent of care homes in the province had reached the 90 per cent threshold needed to reopen.

“For a variety of reasons, there were homes that were not able to meet it,” he said. “For example, some of these care homes might only have eight or 10 people in them and if one person isn’t vaccinated, they might not hit that 90 per cent. There are people who can’t get vaccinated because perhaps they’re allergic or there might be other reasons they’ve chosen not to.”

Visitation at care homes will remain limited to compassionate reasons only until May 30. Exceptions will be made for fully vaccinated residents of homes where 90 per cent of the people have been fully vaccinated and three weeks have elapsed since the last second dose was given.

More changes will be made as the province’s Re-Opening Roadmap continues.

When Step Two is reached — which is expected to be the third week of June — all residents of care homes can have four visitors at a time indoors and nine at a time outdoors.

The plan for Step Three, which is expected to start in the second week of July, is still under review.

Hindley said currently, 96 per cent of care home residents in the province have received their first dose of a COVID vaccine and 89 per cent have received their second dose.

Saskatchewan locked down care homes in the early stages of the pandemic to protect seniors and, when vaccinations started, residents of care homes were among the first to get immunized.

Outbreaks in care homes around the province claimed lives, but vaccinations and other measures have slowed the spread of the virus in those facilities. On Thursday, Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Scott Livingstone noted there’s currently only one long-term care resident with COVID-19 in the province.

“Very difficult decisions were made to protect the health and safety of long-term care home residents and staff, and I know that visitor restrictions have been extremely challenging,” Hindley said in a media release. “People miss being able to spend time with their loved ones, and nowhere is that more evident than in our care homes.

“Thankfully, due to the incredible vaccine uptake by the majority of the eligible population, we are in a position to make it easier for people to be able to visit their friends and family members residing in all of our care homes.”

Those who visit care homes still will be required to follow public health measures regarding masking, physical distancing, hand hygiene and, if required, testing. But, as Hindley noted: “We just felt with where we’re at right now, it’s safe to further ease the restrictions.”