Unions say Sask. gov't emergency order puts 'the bulk of the pandemic on health-care workers'

Unions say they're disappointed the Saskatchewan government has resorted to using an emergency order to redirect health-care workers amid the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, but hasn't widely mandated measures such as masks and a provincially-enforced vaccine passport system. 

"If we are in a state of emergency, then we need to act like it," said Tracy Zambory, the president of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN). 

"This government is putting the bulk of the pandemic on health-care workers and they have other options that they could look at to reduce these numbers," echoed Sandra Seitz, the president of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 5430. 

Early in the pandemic, those two unions and three others — Service Employees International Union (SEIU)-West, Saskatchewan Government Employees Union (SGEU) and Health Sciences Association Of Saskatchewan (HSAS)  — entered into a letter of understanding (LOU) with the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA). The LOU allowed the health authority to redeploy workers to certain areas, such as hospitals, testing centres and facilities experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak, as the need arose. 

That agreement expired on Aug. 8 — about a month after Saskatchewan lifted its provincial statement of emergency and rescinded its public health orders while COVID-19 case numbers were low. Staff returned to their home departments. 

Since then, Saskatchewan has been hit by a fourth wave of COVID-19, primarily among the unvaccinated, with the province reporting a record 506 new cases on Tuesday. 

CUPE and SUN have said they're not against the idea of "floating" staff, but that the SHA abused the original LOU by keeping redeployed workers in strenuous new environments for too long.