Saskatchewan restarts organ donation program as staff return to original positions

Saskatchewan is set toresumemany of the health-care services it halted as the provinceshifted employees to deal with a surge in COVID-19 cases in September.

With case numbers dropping in Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Health Authoritysays more than 90 per cent of eligible workers willreturn to their original positions by the end of November.

That meantorgan donation programs resumingin many areas of the provinceon Monday, according toDerek Miller, executive director of infrastructure management for theSHA.

Only Saskatoonhas yet to return to full service. That is due to staffing vacancies in the region, rather than being related to the shifting ofCOVID-19 resources.

"The team is working right now in order to recruit the people into those roles to allow us to fully resume the services as quickly as possible," Miller said during aProvincial Emergency Operations Centre update on COVID-19 Tuesday.

Other surgical programs, including elective surgeries, endoscopy, ambulatory care andcardiosciences, are ramping up across the province.

Surgeries that require an ICU bed have been prioritized forresumption, officials said.

As of Nov. 26, 316of the 396 services that slowed on Sept. 1, have now been fully resumed or partially resumed.

Planned path

The resumption of services has been a long time coming.

Premier Scott Moe announced on Nov. 3that many of the SHA staff who had been redeployed would be returned to their home positions by the end of the month.

As of Nov. 12, 50 per cent of eligible staff were redeployed to their original positions, according to a timeline provided by the SHA.

A week later that figure had increased to 75 per cent of eligible staff.

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Eligible staff are those who will not have an impact on theSHA redeploymentsthat are directly supporting ICUs, certain acute care services, vaccine delivery and critical care in hospitals, according to the SHA.

The approximately 500 people considered to be eligibleincludethose deployed for contact tracing, testing and assessment, and outbreak management.

The province says 350 people deployed in the positions exempt from eligibilitywill remain in placeto support surge capacity.

However, the SHA is finalizing the second phase of it service resumption plan, which would outline how the remaining redeployed health-care workers will return to their normal positions.

Officials with the SHAand the Ministry of Health did not provide details on how many organs that could have been collected werediscarded in the 67 days that the program was halted.

There were also no answers on how many surgeries had been cancelled or delayed.

"I don't have specific numbers in terms of any number of specific missed opportunities, but I but I do acknowledge that there has been an impact," said Miller.

Continuing to monitor

The province continues to monitor COVID-19 within the province and says it is prepared to adjust its response if necessary.

That includes the emergence of a new COVID-19 variant known as omicron.

Health Minister Paul Merrimansaid onMonday that for now, things are business as usual.

Dr. Saqib Shahab, the province's chief medical health officer,confirmed on Tuesday that the province had yet to detect the variant in Saskatchewan.

He said the province has already communicated withpeople who havetravelled to Saskatchewan fromcountries in southern Africasubject to enhanced travel measures due to the presence of omicron.

Shahab said there areabout 40 people in Saskatchewan who have travelled from thosecountries in the past 14 days.About half of them have already provided tests to the province.Results will be processed in the coming days.