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Adults with COVID put into Sask.'s only ICU for kids

ZAK VESCERA

Adults sick with the COVID-19 pandemic are being placed in Saskatchewan's only children's intensive care unit for want of other treatment options.

It's just another indication of how the province is trying rapidly to scale its critical care capacity to meet the demands of the fourth wave of the virus as it sweeps across Saskatchewan.

The placement of adults in the Jim Pattison Children's Hospital, confirmed Tuesday by an SHA spokesman, underscores the challenge of the fourth wave: rapidly expanding critical care capacity amid staff exhaustion, climbing case rates and one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.

“The challenge, as we see it in the short term, is our ICU numbers,” Premier Scott Moe said.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority is preparing for as many as 175 COVID and NONCOVID patients in intensive care on Sept. 30, compared to a baseline of 79. It's doing that in part through an emergency order allowing for staff to be redeployed.

Internal government modelling projects Saskatchewan could have more than 200 people in ICUS at the fourth wave's peak with moderate public health measures in place, like the masking order Moe announced last week. That's compared to a projection that more than 400 people would need ICU care without any measures in place.

Models are not predictions but are used by officials to help guide decision-making. The government has not publicly released its internal modelling. The health ministry has not responded to numerous requests for comment on the information.

Regina infectious disease specialist Dr. Alex Wong said the focus of this wave is now fundamentally about making sure doctors will not be forced to choose which ICU patients they save.

“This is all about trying ... to minimize the damage and the time and extent to which we'll be forced to perform ICU triage. This is what this comes down to,” Wong said. SHA chief medical officer Dr. Susan Shaw warned healthcare workers last week that such a scenario was not far off.

Moe said concern about critical care is why the government reintroduced a provincial mask mandate and will require people to prove they are vaccinated to access certain businesses as of Oct. 1. He said it was necessary because of “an inordinate number of people” in ICU, the majority of whom are not vaccinated.

“If you're part of that 30 per cent (of residents not yet vaccinated) that could ultimately be part of the 80 per cent in our hospitals and ICU beds, I would ask you to revisit your decision,” Moe said.

Physicians and the Opposition NDP have criticized Moe for not introducing measures sooner, despite warnings from top public health doctors in August.

Wong warned that the province was still facing rising case numbers. Most are concentrated in hot spots in Saskatoon and the north, but Regina and more rural areas of the province have started to report increases in recent days. “When there is no critical care capacity, that doesn't differentiate between someone who has COVID and someone who doesn't,” Wong said.

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2021-09-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

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