Nurses concerned for patient safety without mandatory masking

The move to lift the mandatory masking requirement in Saskatchewan Health Authority facilities is weighing heavily on registered nurses in the province.

Tracy Zambory, president of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN), said the new move makes registered nurses “very concerned” for their most vulnerable patients in clinical settings.

She called it a “shocking and disappointing turn of events.”

Zambory said the union was not consulted prior to the decision, though she has heard that Saskatchewan’s minister of health did speak with health-care workers and the province’s chief medical health officer.

However, she said protecting vulnerable patients from the ongoing threat of COVID-19 should be the most important consideration when deciding whether masks should continue to be worn in SHA facilities.

“It really seems for it to be a stretch to be based in science,” she said.

Zambory said 40 people in Saskatchewan are dying from COVID each month, on average. The province reported 821 COVID deaths in 2022, an average of 68.4 deaths each month.

Zambory said hearing the health minister lump COVID-19 in with other respiratory illnesses is “frankly frightening, because COVID has never been like any other respiratory illness.”

She said it’s disappointing to be the first province in Canada to decide against masking in health-care facilities, places where she said people should be reasonably able to expect added protection.

“The least we can do to help protect the vulnerable residents that are there … is for us to wear a mask while we’re there,” Zambory said.

“For reasons truly unknown, other than maybe discomfort, we’ve decided that we no longer need to be masking in a clinical setting.”

Doctors in the province have always advocated for masking as a good measure to reduce the spread of COVID and protect the most vulnerable patients in Saskatchewan, according to Dr. John Gjevre, president of the Saskatchewan Medical Association.

“I’m sure many of our doctors still feel that way,” he said in an emailed statement.

He said the association still supports the continued availability of masks to staff, patients and visitors at the entrances to all SHA facility, even with the masking requirement no longer in place.