Saskatchewan Health Authority not recommending a request for federal assistance

The Saskatchewan government has been under pressure to request health-care assistance from the federal government.

However, the Saskatchewan Health Authority is not recommending the government do that.

Chief executive officer Scott Livingstone said that based on conversations with Alberta, Ottawa has not been providing intensive care staff.

“You’re not seeing intensivists, and ICU nurses and perfusionists and respiratory therapists dropped into provinces to support, from the federal government. Because as I understand it, they don’t have those types of resources,” Livingstone said during a news conference on Thursday.

Instead, Livingstone said the federal government has been sending non-ICU staff like acute care nurses who do not have that specialized training.

“But that’s what we’re doing now with our service slowdown is redeploying our own resources, upskilling nurses, upskilling other staff to support our COVID response,” he said. The province would also not see a large number of reinforcements, he continued.

“Ten resources going to Alberta, divide that by four, we would get two. I’m just not sure that that’s the path we should be taking,” Livingstone said.

The SHA’s recommendation is to provide the best care possible within Saskatchewan.

“If in fact we cannot provide that care in province, we believe that sending people out of province so that they can receive that same level of care that we want in our ICUs would be the way to go,” Livingstone said.

–With files from Lisa Schick