Article content
Saskatchewan’s ombudsman fielded 477 complaints related to COVID-19 last year, as the government coped with a steep learning curve that left inmates, social service clients and many others unsatisfied.
That was 14 per cent of the 3,415 complaints the ombudsman, Mary McFadyen, received over the course of 2020. In her annual report released Thursday, she noted that complaints about long-term care homes and correctional facilities were both up, partly due to a sizeable share of pandemic-related complaints.
We apologize, but this video has failed to load.
Try refreshing your browser, or Ombudsman flooded with COVID-related complaints last year Back to video
REGINA Friday marks one year since Saskatchewan reported its first case of COVID-19. A person in their 60s who had travelled to Egypt was the first presumptive case in the province. Since then, Saskatchewan has endured several spikes in cases, deadly outbreaks in long-term care and a quiet Christmas. The arrival of the COVID-19 vaccine in December paved the way for optimism for some, and skepticism for others. Here’s a look back at the past year of pandemic storylines in Saskatchewan:
MORE THAN 30,000 CASES Since COVID-19 arrived in Saskatchewan on March 12, 2020, there have been 30,193 cases confirmed in the province, as of March 11, 2021.
Regina– New Democratic Party Leader Ryan Meili told delegates of the Municipalities of Saskatchewan, formerly Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association, that Saskatchewan should have done a. . .
Scabies was detected in two residents during the facility’s weekly skin assessment. Iris Strong’s mother lives at the long-term care home. She just survived the facility’s COVID-19 outbreak, which saw 38 residents die from the virus. This is the third time within a year that they’ve had this scabies outbreak, Strong said. Strong questions how the skin infestation was able to get into the home despite visitor restrictions in place. Nobody is seeing their parents, nobody’s having any contact what so ever, what the heck is going, she said. They obviously do not have a clue on how to contain any kind of viral or parasitic issues.
Article content
Saskatchewan’s ombudsman has been called in to investigate the rampant outbreak at Regina’s Extendicare Parkside that produced at least 200 COVID-19 cases and 43 deaths.
Evidently, this is what it has taken for this province to get serious about years of neglect and underfunding of care for our most vulnerable. After decades of warnings that this is a crisis, it comes to this.
At Thursday’s public accounts meeting, Regina University NDP MLA Aleana Young requested that the provincial auditor examine what went wrong at Parkside.
The Saskatchewan Party government’s committee members didn’t simply sweep this under the rug as they have so often done with Opposition calls to properly investigate the Global Transportation Hub (GTH). Instead, Seniors Minister Everett Hindley argued that this issue falls under the jurisdiction of Provincial Ombudsman Mary McFadyen and that McFadyen is better suited than the auditor to examine the outbreak. There is validity to th