Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Scott Livingstone. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

By CJME News

SHA provides new guidelines for visitation during pandemic

Jun 3, 2020 | 11:33 AM

The Saskatchewan Health Authority has updated its visitation restrictions for long-term care homes and hospitals.

The main focus is the criteria for compassionate reasons for visits during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Family Presence Expert Panel comprising patient and family advisers, along with public health and infection prevention and control experts was assembled to update the guidelines.

The new criteria take effect immediately, with full implementation to begin in the coming week.

The guidelines include:

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• For residents in long-term care, quality of life considerations will now be used in addition to care needs to determine if these needs cannot be met without the support of a designated family member or support person. In these situations, two family members/support people can be designated with one family/support person present at a time;
• All critical care and intensive care patients are now included in the compassionate care definition (previously limited to those at high risk for loss of life) and family presence for palliative care has been expanded to facilitate two family members/support people being present at the same time;
• Guidelines have also been revised to ensure that it is clear that there can be one family member or support person for inpatient, outpatient, emergency/urgent care patients who have specific challenges resulting in compromised comprehension, decision making or mobility due to disability or onset of a medical condition. This could include mobility, hearing, speech including communication barriers, intellectual or mental health disability, and visual or memory impairment; and,
• New guidelines have also been created to safely support outdoor visits with these visits not limited to one person at a time.

“Compassionate care means different things to different people, so we worked hard together to review this and come up with adjustments that still ensure we are protected when living or coming into these facilities,” Heather Thiessen, a patient and family adviser on the panel and the co-chair of the SHA’s provincial patient and family leadership council, said in a media release.

“Like so many others, I need my partner there with me if I require emergency care. Otherwise, I am in danger of not understanding or being able to communicate what is happening to me to my care providers. I am so proud of the work our panel is doing, and I look forward working with the SHA to support families in keeping each other physically and mentally safe in this pandemic world we live in.”

The SHA has created a method to assist care teams with knowing when a patient or long-term care resident can have a family member or support person with them. Those individuals will have to follow screening, hand hygiene and limited movement within a site.

All outpatients and family members/support persons taking part in these visits will be provided with a medical grade mask and will be asked to wear it while in SHA homes and facilities.

More to come.