(CJME News Staff)

By Lisa Schick

Sask. gov’t still doesn’t have finished plan to deal with possible coronavirus outbreak

Mar 11, 2020 | 10:25 AM

The Government of Saskatchewan still doesn’t have a finished plan on how it, and its many arms, would deal with a coronavirus outbreak if it were to happen here.

Health Minister Jim Reiter said the plan is a work in progress, saying the ministry’s chief medical health officer is working on it with a team and has been for some time.

“I have a great deal of comfort in Dr. (Saqib) Shahab and his crew, that they’ll handle this appropriately,” said Reiter.

A plan would include things like where more hospital beds would go and what kinds of supplies would be needed.

When asked about specific facets of the plan, Reiter was vague. He said he hadn’t been told about specific needs for supplies at this time but that he expected purchases would be made.

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Reiter said officials are also still working on where hospital beds are available and where they could be created.

When it comes to the cost of an outbreak, Reiter just said ministry officials are used to peaks and valleys in the health-care budget.

“I think they’re trying to prepare for every scenario … They have to prepare for some very serious scenarios and then they have to do their best-guess assumptions on what we’ll be sitting at,” said Reiter.

Reiter commented that the government is in uncharted territory in this case, but he also repeated that there aren’t yet any confirmed cases in the province.

The NDP’s health critic, Vicki Mowat, brought up the lack of a finished plan in the house on Tuesday afternoon. Afterwards she pointed out it has been eight weeks since the first positive case was found in Canada.

“They’ve had the opportunity to come up with a plan specific to what we know about COVID-19,” said Mowat.

Mowat said people deserve to know that the government has a plan in place for something like this. She talked about the strain an outbreak could put on a system that’s already stretched.

“You already have folks in the hallways that aren’t getting the care they need in emergency rooms,” Mowat said. “What’s going to happen if there is a flood of patients that come in? We need to know what that’s going to look like, and we want to believe that the government has a plan to be able to move that forward.”

Mowat said Saskatchewan could have a case come up soon and her concern is that there isn’t a plan in writing at this point.

“When we have people coming forward to us saying, ‘You know, I work in health care and I don’t know what we’re supposed to do if we see cases,’ that’s quite concerning to me,” said Mowat.

Shahab has said in the past that coronavirus has been added to the list of severe respiratory illnesses which have a protocol to be followed when they present at a hospital.