The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) announced Friday that they will be enacting the second phase of surge plans, which will include a temporary provincial slowdown of elective procedures and transfer of patients.

The new plan will see all teams focus on COVID-19 cases in the province's hospitals, all while continuing to support emergency and cancer procedures and treatments, as well as cases deemed urgent over the next six weeks.

Staff will also be deployed to areas that are facing urgent and emergent care demands. Teams will work provincially to implement load leveling processes across all acute care and ICU sites throughout Saskatchewan.

Due to this, hospital patient transfers will take place involving all whose who fit established criteria and can be assured of comparable safe care. These individuals may be transferred to facilities that are not their preferred choice, or the closest to their home.

"We have hit a critical point, and are now on the verge of the largest test our health care system has faced since this pandemic began," said the SHA's CEO Scott Livingstone. "Teams are being asked to support the health care system's ability to maintain services to those at greatest risk, while ensuring the SHA can support testing and contact tracing to help slow the spread of COVID-19."

According to a press release from the SHA, the directive includes the new surge targets for ICU and hospital capacity:

  • Surge from a baseline of 79 ICU beds up to 175 (previously 130) to accommodate a new projection of 125 COVID ICU patients (previously 80), and to maintain capacity for up to 50 non-COVID ICU patients;
  • Flex up hospital capacity across the province to care for a total of 350 COVID and non-ICU patients (previously 255).
  • Support the deployment of staff to support the case investigation requirements for up to 750 new lab-confirmed positive cases per day
  • Continue efforts to meet testing targets for demand, aiming for no longer than 24 hours wait for testing within a test center or a wait of no more than 90 minutes within a drive-thru.

Provincial criteria is being established to ensure consistent application across all care teams of what procedures will be temporarily paused. Individuals whose booked elective procedures are affected will be directly communicated with. The previous direction of maintaining services for mental health and addictions, and childhood immunizations under the age of 2 remains.

Implementation of this will be occurring over the coming days, with impact to patients starting next week.

"The pressure on our hospitals is a direct result of the ongoing pandemic of the unvaccinated," said Livingstone. "The result is that many Saskatchewan residents will now go without the health services they need to preserve their quality of life. If you are eligible, please get vaccinated. To do otherwise is to risk making a choice for all Saskatchewan residents about whether the emergency and critical services will be there for them when they need it."