Dear Minister Reiter and Mr. Livingstone:
Long-term care in Saskatchewan is provided, in part, by hard-working and dedicated members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 5430.
Last week those CUPE workers listened to the Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO, Scott Livingstone, and Minister of Health, Jim Reiter, speak about “cohorting” in long-term care in Saskatchewan. Cohorting is restricting staffing to a single site or facility, so that workers are not working in more than one facility.
On June 1, 2020, Mr. Livingstone told CBC News that cohorting to avoid the spread of COVID- 19 would be an experiment. He went on to say, “Lots of staff were working part-time at many different facilities, and that also is a challenge for us with respect to consistency, staffing, and hiring and keeping people employed in a single facility.” Further on in the interview, he mused, “It’s going to be interesting to see if we have the ability to continue with that long term …”