Saskatchewan restarts organ donation program as staff return to original positions
CBC
Saskatchewan is set to resume many of the health-care services it halted as the province shifted employees to deal with a surge in COVID-19 cases in September.
With case numbers dropping in Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Health Authority says more than 90 per cent of eligible workers will return to their original positions by the end of November.
That meant organ donation programs resuming in many areas of the province on Monday, according to Derek Miller, executive director of infrastructure management for the SHA.
Only Saskatoon has yet to return to full service. That is due to staffing vacancies in the region, rather than being related to the shifting of COVID-19 resources.
Other surgical programs, including elective surgeries, endoscopy, ambulatory care and cardiosciences, are ramping up across the province.
As of Nov. 26, 316 of the 396 services that slowed on Sept. 1, have now been fully resumed or partially resumed.
The resumption of services has been a long time coming.
Premier Scott Moe announced on Nov. 3 that many of the SHA staff who had been redeployed would be returned to their home positions by the end of the month.
As of Nov. 12, 50 per cent of eligible staff were redeployed to their original positions, according to a timeline provided by the SHA.
A week later that figure had increased to 75 per cent of eligible staff.
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Eligible staff are those who will not have an impact on the SHA redeployments that are directly supporting ICUs, certain acute care services, vaccine delivery and critical care in hospitals, according to the SHA.
That includes those deployed for contact tracing, testing and assessment and outbreak management.
The province says those deployed in the positions exempt from eligibility will remain in place to support surge capacity.
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