Limiting movement of care home workers, staff screening part of SHA's offensive plan to combat COVID-19

REGINA -- The Saskatchewan Health Authority says limiting staff movement between its long-term facilities and screening staff for any symptoms is part of its offensive plan to combat the spread of COVID-19 in the province.

The offensive plan was part of COVID-19 modelling released by the SHA on April 8. The health authority says it is still operating under this model. At an update last week, SHA CEO Scott Livingstone said the health authority was making temperature checks and masking mandatory at all of its facilities.

The SHA will provide more details on the data that has been gathered, and how models have adjusted, next Tuesday. Livingstone said at Tuesday's update that the health authority continues to plan for the worst case scenario.

Workers limited to one facility

The province updated the public health order in Saskatchewan to protect vulnerable citizens on Friday. Starting April 28, workers at personal care and long-term care homes will only be allowed to work at one facility. The SHA says care homes can ask for special approval from a medical health officer to allow staff to work in more than facility. That exception would be made if the facility isn’t able to maintain proper staffing levels.

“The SHA is aggressively pursuing a long-term care staff cohorting strategy in order to meet the April 28, 2020 deadline,” the SHA said in an update on Tuesday. “As an immediate measure, SHA will implement staff cohorting for high-risk areas (for example, testing/ assessment sites and facilities with COVID-19-positive patients) as soon as possible.”

The health authority says the measures will prevent staff working with COVID-19 positive patients from also working in long-term care facilities.

Screening tool available for health-care workers

The health authority launched a new online screening tool on April 16.

Staff can use the tool to use the tool within two hours of starting their shift. The tool asks self-screening questions and will tell people if they are fit to come to work. The SHA says the final screen can be shown at screening stations at SHA-operated facilities.

Protecting first responders

In its update on Tuesday, the SHA said it’s providing training for COVID-19 assessment and screening for Medical First Responders.

The MFRs will also receive training on proper PPE, fit testing for N95 respirators and reporting potential COVID-19 exposures.

Update on PPE

The health authority is offering online updates on the availability of PPE in the province.

According to the SHA, the PPE Bulletin will answer questions raised by staff and physicians through town halls, the SHA’s Occupational Health and Safety Hotline and Integrated Health Incident Command Centres. New concerns or questions will be addressed through a PPE Rapid Update, the SHA says.

COVID-19 testing in Sask.

According to the Saskatchewan Health Authority, tests numbers have dropped in Saskatchewan over the past few days because “there was a decreasing number of people presenting for testing.”

The health authority says there could be a lot of reasons why people aren’t coming forward for testing, but physical distancing measures may decrease the transmission of all respiratory viruses in the province.

The SHA says it still plans to have a capacity of 1,500 tests a day by the end of the month.

Testing criteria and the self-assessment tool are being updated constantly to reflect the changing nature of COVID-19 in the province.

The SHA has added testing sites in Assiniboia, Kindersley and Swift Current in the past week. There are also 13 on-reserve sites in the northern part of the province.

Contact tracing

The SHA says the province has more than 250 employees available for contact tracing in Saskatchewan. Typically, the health authority would have a baseline capacity of 62 full time equivalent employees.

The health authority says it has a surge plan in place to employ more than 400 people for contact tracing demands.

Contact tracing begins when someone tests positive for COVID-19.

The person who tested speaks to a public health employee, who creates a contact list for that person. Public health then contacts anyone who has come into contact with that person.

“Contact tracing is an essential component of mitigating further spread of the virus,” the SHA said.