The Saskatchewan Health Authority has announced they will be implementing more extensive screening processes for anyone entering an SHA facility or program, beginning on April 15, and make the use of masks mandatory for all staff in patient areas.
The new screening processes will require all staff, physicians, trainees, vendors, and contractors to confirm daily that they have no influenza-like symptoms before entering any SHA facility.
This includes long-term care facilities and programs, hospitals, primary care facilities, and affiliates working alongside the SHA. The standard practice, said the SHA, will be daily screening and temperature checks, with staff continuing to also self-monitor themselves.
SHA staff and physicians working or travelling through patient or resident areas of facilities will also be required to wear a mask at all times, as a COVID-19 measure.
“Safety is our top priority,” Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Scott Livingstone said in a press release. “That is why we continue to escalate our efforts to protect our patients and health care providers. Requiring these daily screening practices and adapting our approach to masking will help us stop the spread of COVID-19 and help protect our workforce to ensure our health care services are there when needed.”
In the province’s daily video address on April 14, Livingstone clarified that the new masking requirements will apply to all SHA staff as well as any community organization that is an affiliate with the SHA.
He shared that the SHA currently has an estimated month’s supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks, and has more ordered. The health authority is confident they are adequately prepared for these new measures.
“With the announcements today to go to continuous masking, there is sort of an offset with respect to the number of masks we will use because people may don a mask and then move out of an area and discard it because they might not think they are coming back to the area. But with a continuous masking policy, we feel that we do have enough masks to provide that not just for ourselves but our affiliates and partners,” said Livingstone.
Livingstone also mentioned that the province is working with healthcare affiliates and unions to create a plan that will address SHA staff who work in more than one facility, like long term care.
“In probably the next week or so, we will have a more definitive plan on how we’re doing that,” said Livingstone.
He indicated that the likely strategy will be to cohort staff, to be able to ensure that people inside the facilities as well as staff are properly cared for. If there is the workforce available, Livingstone noted that the SHA would consider limiting staff to working in just one facility as a safety measure.
The SHA also asks that the public continue to do their part in protecting healthcare workers and their patients by complying with the ongoing no-visitation and self-isolation orders.
