Saskatchewan ICU visits, discharges lower first year of COVID than pre-pandemic: Report

Monthly visits to intensive care units across Saskatchewan declined during the first 12-months of the COVID pandemic. Despite fluctuating COVID hospitalizations, total ICU visits declined during fiscal year 2020-2021 compared to 2019-2020.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority’s (SHA) annual report showed fewer ICU visits than immediately before the pandemic in March 2020. The chart compares total ICU visits and discharges from April 2019 to March 2020 and April 2020 to March 2021, as first reported by the Western Standard.

In fiscal year 2020-2021, the number of COVID inpatient hospital discharges from April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021, was 2,309, including 442 ICU visits.

COVID admissions were considerably lower in fiscal year 2019-2020 because the virus did not spread until the end of the fiscal year.

The total number of non-COVID inpatient discharges in fiscal year 2020-2021 was 116,112. The total number of non-COVID ICU visits was 6,637.

For the previous fiscal year, non-COVID inpatient discharges were 135,062. The total number of non-COVID ICU visits was 8,128.

"COVID-19 admissions were considerably lower in fiscal 2019-2020 because the virus did not begin to spread until the end of the fiscal year," writes SHA. However, the chart does not specify the duration spent by residents in intensive care.

The SHA focused on using and balancing capacity across the province to manage the care needs of COVID and non-COVID patients. All hospitals were prepared to provide COVID and non-COVID care.

On March 23, 2020, five days after Saskatchewan declared a state of emergency, the province discontinued all non-urgent/elective surgeries, procedures and diagnostics. This action allowed the SHA to redeploy nurses and other staff towards pandemic efforts, ensure medical supplies and PPE were available when needed and reduce the risk of COVID exposure to care providers and patients.

SHA CEO Scott Livingstone wrote in a statement that staff are "challenged by these requirements| and the "long hours required to fight COVID-19." However, he affirmed their "commitment to safety" and to the people of this province.

The Ministry of Health directed SHA to purchase and maintain an estimated six-month supply of core PPE. By the end of the fiscal year, SHA had achieved the targeted/estimated six-month supply.

By March 31, 2021, SHA had:

• A 0.19 percent increase in exam gloves from 2019-20
• An 85 percent increase in protective goggles from 2019-20
• A 424 percent increase in face shields from 2019-20
• An 89 percent increase in gowns from 2019-20
• A 567 percent increase in procedural masks from 2019-20
• A 284 percent increase in N95 masks from 2019-20

Although concerns were expressed about ventilator availability at the beginning of the pandemic, SHA had 702 ventilators (489 invasive and 213 non-invasive) by the end of the fiscal year. At this time, 93 patients were on ventilators, including 26 who had COVID.

The SHA continued to provide services to patients who required emergent and urgent care. Cancer, urgent and emergent surgeries continued as planned. Its community services, elective surgeries and diagnostic impacted by this service slowdown began to resume on May 18, 2020.

Implementation varied across the province based on outbreaks, capacity, availability of health care workers and availability of essential supplies.

"The dramatic and practically instantaneous scale-up of our business has been felt in ways rarely talked about. The extra challenges around staffing as a result of the need to cohort staff and create robust entryway screening processes are representative of these rarely noted pressures involving thousands of our people every day," it reads.

By the end of the 2020-21 fiscal year, surgical volumes were 81.1 percent of pre-COVID volumes, with 71,173 surgeries performed. MRIs were at 90.6 percent, with 33,300 completed, and CTs were at 97.3 percent, with 118,000 completed.