As the province moves closer to the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, weeks or perhaps months from now, the SHA's response has fallen into both offensive and defensive strategies; focusing on containment, delay, mitigation and population health promotion.

Much has already been said regarding the offensive measures; containment, delay and health promotion. Physical distancing, self-isolation and frequent hand-washing in order to delay the peak and limit community transmission.

Their defensive measures are about Mitigation, and it was the focus of much of Tuesday's WebEx presentation.

Some highlights of that mitigation include the ongoing slowdown of non-essential services, which has so far freed up more than 1,000 acute care beds, and a further staged expansion in various locations that will see intensive care beds rise from 98 to 963 as needed.

Some other highlights include:

  • Dedicated spaces created in many facilities to cohort COVID-19 patients;
  • As needed, the designation of certain hospitals as COVID-19 ONLY hospitals, moving non-COVID cases to other designated hospitals in the region.
  • Adding Acute care capacity with the addition of field hospitals in Saskatoon and Regina.

In the southwest, Much of the response to COVID-19 will be staged according to increased demand. While a few measures will be implemented immediately, most will be rolled out as the demand requires.

Five hospitals in the Swift Current Area will become COVID-19 only if the need arises: Swift Current, Maple Creek, Shaunavon, Gravelbourg and Assiniboia.

Kindersley and Moose Jaw would be designated as NON-COVID hospitals.

Effectively what this means is that, should the number of COVID-19 patients surge, non-COVID healthcare concerns would be shunted to other hospitals in order to better focus both workforce and resources to where they are most needed.

Similarly, one change that will be taking place immediately is the temporary conversion of Herbert and Leader hospitals to focus on what is known as "alternate level of care" (ALC) patients.

In layman terms, ALC patients are patients who are occupying an acute care bed in a hospital, but are not acutely ill or do not require the intensity of resources they are currently using.

By moving those patients to dedicated hospitals, they not only free up acute-care beds for COVID-19 patients but are also able to again shift workforce and resources to hospitals as they are needed.

The ability to shift workforce and resources around is arguably the keynote feature of the mitigation strategy; informing virtually every decision announced.

It's the reason that a number of smaller health centres in the southwest will have their primary care serviced reduced and more care provided through alternate means such as virtual care.

SHA CEO Scott Livingstone again stressed that most of these measures are staggered and will only be taken as the need arises.

“Changes like conversion to COVID-19 dedicated hospitals will only occur where it is absolutely required to ensure safety and maintain access for patients who need our care.”

For an in-depth look at the modelling scenarios that led to this plan, see the full story here.