by: lynn giesbrecht
as a child and adolescent psychiatrist in saskatoon, tamara hinz is in and out of the emergency department responding to mental health crises.
fall is already typically a busy time in her department as youth mental health challenges rise around the start of the school year, but now emergency is already overwhelmed and she often struggles to find space to assess patients experiencing a mental health crisis.
“we really can’t just treat somebody in a hallway. it’s lots of personal and confidential information being shared,” hinz said. “we wait hours sometimes for a room or a space that’s private enough to be able to do that kind of assessment.”
the number of people hospitalized with covid-19 in saskatchewan has been trending upward since the beginning of august. on aug. 1, there were 48 people in hospital, including 11 in icu. by tuesday, those numbers had skyrocketed to 225 total hospitalizations, including 43 in icu.
two of the people in acute care are children under the age of 12. of the province’s record-breaking 506 new cases, 101 are also in children under the age of 12 — the most of any age group.
the surge capacity plan for hinz’s child psychiatry unit, should they need more than their 10 beds, is to move some patients to the jim pattison children’s hospital. but when that hospital is also feeling covid-19 pressures, surge capacity is not available.