‘Health human resource crisis’ affecting rural hospitals too: SUN president

The president of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses says the government’s plan to shift patients from urban to rural health-care facilities isn’t feasible — because Omicron has changed the health-care treatment game in Saskatchewan.

Tracy Zambory said rural hospitals also don’t have the capacity or staffing to help lighten the load facing urban health care at this time.

As of Tuesday, there were 291 people in Saskatchewan hospitals for COVID-related illnesses or incidental infections. Of those, 33 were in intensive care.

Health Minister Paul Merriman admitted during a new conference Monday that hospitals in Regina and Saskatoon were full.

“We have to start using our rural capacity,” Merriman told reporters. “I know rural Saskatchewan is already stretched as far as some staffing challenges out there, but we need to be able to utilize those beds and I know that the people on the front line will be able to rise to the occasion.”

But Zambory said there’s no proverbial “pulling up your boots” this time.

“I can tell you that there is no capacity in the rural facilities either,” Zambory said.

The SUN president said capacity is stretched because Saskatchewan is in a “health human resource crisis.”

“We are missing physicians, registered nurses (and people who work in) labs. I’ve heard of a number of facilities that have had to go on bypass over the weekend because they didn’t have proper staff in different areas to allow them to remain open to the public,” Zambory said.

That crisis has to do with more than 1,000 health-care workers who have either recently been off sick or are isolating. She said the number continues to grow, too.

“When the board members heard Minister Merriman say that people would be sent out into the rural areas, they’re very, very upset by this because it appears that there really isn’t a whole lot of thought going into this,” Zambory said.

Jim Rickwood, the mayor of Biggar, said rural health-care and nursing shortages are issues that should have been addressed by the province much earlier, long before the once-unforeseen problem of COVID-19.

“We are short of nurses. They do know that,” Rickwood said. “I don’t think they get the concept of the degree that it affects the anxiety of the community and we pay a great deal of tax dollars for health care and education.”

Estevan Mayor Roy Ludwig said his city needed help at one point and if it can help this time, it will — but not at the expense of its own residents.

“Personally, I do not have an issue and I don’t think it’s a problem for us to help out where we can … with the intention that we, then, don’t want to become overwhelmed,” Ludwig said.

He said he sees the value of communities in the province providing assistance to each other where possible.

In Davidson — halfway between Saskatoon and Regina — Mayor Elaine Ebenal said staff are putting in long hours.

“I think they have kept a bed or two here empty so if someone comes, (they can help),” Ebenal said. “It’s not like (urban facilities) are sending 50 people out here.

“I think all our health-care workers everywhere are getting played out because we get COVID here too.”

Ebenal said right now, Davidson is dealing with “quite a bit” of the virus in the community.

“The leadership of this province is playing a huge gamble with the lives of the people of Saskatchewan, with the health-care system itself and, frankly, with the ability to have professionals working and being able to function inside of the system,” Zambory said.

— With files from 650 CKOM’s Lara Fominoff