Lakeview Pioneer Lodge outbreak sheds light on specialized care in Saskatchewan

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) told northeastNOW in an email it is “providing on site staffing support where needed, and guidance on infection prevention and control standards during an outbreak.”

Pioneer Lodge is not owned by SHA but is an affiliate.

Nogier said none of their residents are currently in the ICU and are being treated by an on-site physician. The remainder of staff that has been needed is being parachuted in from all corners of the province.

“Everything from dietary and housekeeping, right through to our clinical nursing staff,” he said. “RN’s and LPN’s and continuing care assistants.”

He said they ‘coping’ with their current staffing levels.

“It is one of the largest health care responses I’ve seen in Saskatchewan in a long time,” Nogier said. “It’s been exceptional.”

On top of actual staff coming to assist where needed at Pioneer Lodge, Nogier said some family members of residents have been trained and are able to assist and be with their families. Nogier said that while a long-term care home is an institution of health in the province, it is still home for those residents and they are doing daily activities. He said it’s important for certain dementia patients to have those activities and treatments, and with all residents essentially stuck in their rooms, that can become difficult.

“I call it a good old fashioned Saskatchewan all on board approach,” Nogier told northeastNOW. “That’s what has been saving us right now, it’s been really good.”

He added making sure those family members can get in, get trained, and are provided with the right PPE is important, and to make sure they don’t become one of the statistics.

As the Pioneer Lodge looks to get through the outbreak, Nogier said there is two major steps for the near future. The first being maintaining residents’ health, and that starts with the on-site physician treating residents at the moment.

“Recognizing that everybody is infected and what we have to do is maintain peoples’ health,” he said. “It’s not like we’re preventing further infection for residents.”

He said they also need to make sure all of the proper OHS systems are in place to ensure other staff members are not infected. There has been a lot of work in the last 48 hours going into that.

After that comes the recovery stage, according to Nogier. That would include re-emerging as an organization and rebuilding trust with families as an organization that has been entrusted with residents’ health. It would also include taking a look at how something like this occurs and making sure it doesn’t happen again.

With vaccines starting to roll out across the province, Nogier said they are part of a rollout plan in the short-term. He said there’s no specific date on when they may get their vaccine and there are a lot of logistics to work through, but they are confident that it is coming soon.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also shed a light on long-term care in the province according to Nogier, saying a care-standard model for staffing is lacking in Saskatchewan. He said when cohorting staff begins, it opens up the holes they have and it creates fatigue for staff, which leads to incidents like these.

“I think if there’s a message in this thing, it’s that we need a good hard look provincially at how we operate specialized care.” Nogier said.

The official opposition of Saskatchewan echoed similar concerns in a news release on Friday as well. It calls on the Saskatchewan Party government to take a hard look at its long-term care homes, saying that even before the pandemic, there were staffing and other concerns.

“If conditions in our care homes were deplorable before the pandemic, they are downright dangerous now,” Vicki Mowat said in the NDP release.

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mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett6

by Mat Barrett

Lakeview Pioneer Lodge outbreak sheds light on specialized care in Saskatchewan

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