Doctors direct tough questions to Merriman during SMA’s fall assembly

Health Minister Paul Merriman and Rural and Remote Minister of Health Everett Hindley were in the proverbial hot seat Friday during the Saskatchewan Medical Association’s fall assembly.

Two assemblies with SMA delegates are held each year; one in the spring, and one in the fall. The session Friday consisted of a question-and-answer period with both ministers.

Several doctors expressed their frustrations over the province’s refusal to implement additional public health measures to battle COVID-19, including the University of Saskatchewan’s assistant professor of general internal medicine, Dr. Benjamin Leis.

“I think what’s beyond frustrating for us is hearing you say that vaccination isn’t working very well, but that’s the only thing you’re pushing forward,” he said.

“The truth is, no one is calling Saskatchewan’s response to the pandemic a success except members of the current government. I’d like to hear what kind of things in order of priority the government considers doing to prevent a fifth wave, which is looming.”

Leis also suggested the ministers follow the advice of chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab, and Saskatchewan Health Authority medical health officer Dr. Susan Shaw.

“We would support having a multi-faceted intervention, which includes public health measures. And the other thing we would support is not putting all our eggs in education because as a student … who trained at the University of Toronto, as it turns out, education is not very effective in changing behaviour. It’s forced functions that work. Hence why your vaccine passport has been successful,” he explained.

Merriman agreed a multi-faceted approach was necessary, but said his government was not prepared to go beyond the public health measures currently in place.

“We’ve had pushback. We’ve had huge protests out in front of our Legislative Building … people (saying) ‘You’re restricting my freedoms’ and it’s very frustrating … I understand your frustration but we are pushing that limit as much as we’re prepared to do right now,” Merriman said.

Cancelled surgeries in Saskatchewan

Regina’s Dr. Sarah Miller told the health minister she has no ability to quote surgical wait times to her patients anymore.

She wondered how the lineup of patients would be addressed in an equitable manner after thousands of surgeries were cancelled in the last several weeks, the transplant program was suspended, and health-care professionals across the province were reallocated from their normal duties.

“(Surgeries) aren’t elective,” she said. “They might not be life-threatening conditions, but they are hugely affecting to quality of life.

“For the last year, when asked how we were going to catch up, we’ve been told repeatedly, ‘It’s a surge. Now’s not the time to discuss this.’ So now that we are 19 months in, what is your plan to address the surgical backlog?” she asked.

Merriman said some “challenging choices” have been made, and talks were underway on how to address that. He said 88 per cent of surgeries were still carried out in the last year, a number challenged by orthopedic surgeon Dr. Alan Beggs.

“I wonder if you could clarify for me the sourcing of those cases,” Beggs said. “Being a surgeon, working with surgeons and representing surgeons, I’m fully aware that none of the surgeons in Regina have come anywhere close to 80 per cent of their pre-pandemic numbers or productivity.”

“I got that from the SHA,” answered Merriman. “That’s what they said was in the last 12 months we’ve been able to do. And those are all surgeries — everything from cataracts to major surgeries, cardiovascular surgeries. Everything under the sun. So it might be some of the day surgeries that have made up the bulk of that number.”

Merriman also told doctors privatizing some surgeries or procedures is something that’s being considered.

“We are looking at private,” he said. “We’ve announced that we’re doing more scans in the private system. This is the time that we want to have all hands on deck.”

He said he hoped that 75 per cent of all health-care workers would be back in their original positions in the next two weeks.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an amended version of this story, correcting the spelling of Everett Hindley’s name.