Flin Flon's patients transferred to Saskatchewan hospitals
WATCH: Nearly a dozen patients at Flin Flon's hospital have been moved to facilities throughout Sask. following an evacuation order.
WATCH: Nearly a dozen patients at Flin Flon's hospital have been moved to facilities throughout Sask. following an evacuation order.
Nearly a dozen patients at Flin Flon's hospital have been moved to facilities throughout Saskatchewan following an evacuation order in the Manitoba community.
Eleven Saskatchewan residents who were admitted to the Flin Flon hospital have been transferred to a handful of Saskatchewan communities including Tisdale, Shellbrook, Moosomin, and Regina.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) says it began transferring patients just after 6 p.m. on Wednesday. The SHA says it worked closely with the Saskatchewan Air Ambulance to transfer patients.
'There were significant time pressures with the wildfire and the safety concerns, and we had to move very quickly, and move a high number of patients in a quick time period,' said Derek Miller, COO of the SHA.
Miller says many people worked tirelessly to transfer the patients – from point-of-care teams in Flin Flon and each of the receiving hospitals to the clinical teams that provided in-flight care, and those who matched patients to an appropriate facility and coordinated with healthcare providers.
He says all 11 patients were safely transferred around midnight on Wednesday.
'I'm so proud of the teams. Everybody rallied in order to be able to support those patients and get them safely to a hospital,' Miller said in an interview with CTV News.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBC
30 minutes ago
- CBC
Influenza now killing more Nova Scotians than COVID-19
For the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of Nova Scotians dying from influenza exceeds the number of COVID deaths. According to the province's latest respiratory watch report, 124 Nova Scotians have died from influenza during the 2024-25 respiratory season, which runs from Aug. 25, 2024, and will go up until Aug. 29, 2025. There have been 108 COVID deaths so far this season. Dr. Lisa Barrett, an infectious diseases doctor, said the fact there are fewer deaths due to COVID than influenza isn't any kind of positive development for the general population. "Some people have said, 'Oh, thank goodness, we're back to normal,'" she said. "And I'm like, 'Well, now we've got two viruses — not just one — that are still in the really important category for hospitalizations, bad lungs and deaths." Barrett said this year's global flu season was one of the worst of the last decade. "Yes, influenza has taken over from COVID, but they're both higher than we'd like them to be," she said. Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia's chief medical officer of health, said pandemics don't last forever and COVID-19 has become endemic — something that occurs regularly in an environment. He said it is not surprising to him that influenza deaths have topped COVID-19 deaths. "This is what we'd expect as we return to more of a normal respiratory virus season with a mix of viruses," he said. Where COVID-19 dominated so much discussion in past years, other respiratory illnesses — influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in particular — didn't get nearly as much attention. "For some people, we don't need to be as strongly afraid of COVID, but we need to be very respectful and take seriously all respiratory viruses," said Strang. He's encouraging people to practise the same measures that were preached during the peak days of the pandemic. That means washing hands, wearing masks where appropriate, staying home during an illness and getting vaccinated. But, on the latter point, fewer people are doing that. Data provided by the province shows that while 29 per cent of the overall population got their flu shots for the 2024-25 season, it was only 18 per cent for COVID-19. For the previous year's campaign, the percentages were 32.8 per cent and 22.8 per cent, respectively. "These vaccines are very effective against preventing ... severe illness and death," said Strang. "That's what we should be focusing on. How do we reduce that number of respiratory virus deaths? And it's through vaccines." Strang said the province will be expanding eligibility for the RSV vaccine this fall to include people 75 and above, regardless of where they live.
CBC
30 minutes ago
- CBC
Fishermen spot pod of killer whales off Cape Breton
Lobster fishermen in northern Cape Breton got an up-close glimpse of a pod of killer whales this week, a sighting that a marine biologist says is on the rise. Bernie Lamey was hauling lobster traps on Monday not far off Cape Smokey, a famous Cabot Trail landmark, when a couple of orcas started circling the boat. Within 10 minutes, the fishermen had spotted about a dozen. The orcas seemed to be in a playful mood. "They came around our boat, bumped into the boat, rolled around, showed their bellies, [came] up and had a little look at us," he told CBC's Information Morning Cape Breton. "They almost looked like they were more interested in us than we were of them. It was pretty spectacular." Lamey said he knew right away they were killer whales by their distinctive black-and-white colouring. "That's a pretty hard whale to miss," he said. "We get to see all kinds of marine life out there.... Looking down in the water and seeing something that's only three feet away from you that's the size of your boat is pretty impressive." At least one whale stayed several hundred metres away, but Lamey said he knew it was an orca, too, because its dorsal fin was nearly two metres tall. "The fact that they were killer whales and the fact that there was 10 or 12 of them there at one time and they decided to stay and play for a few minutes was just an experience that I'll never forget." Elizabeth Zwamborn, a marine biologist and a professor at Trinity Western University in B.C., runs an annual survey of pilot whales off northern Cape Breton. They're black like orcas, but don't have white patches on their cheeks and have smaller dorsal fins. It's possible to mistake juvenile white-beaked dolphins as juvenile orcas because they're both black and white, but Zwamborn said the videos and photos she's seen this week off Cape Breton are definitely killer whales. Zwamborn said only one orca has been seen inshore in the 27 years the study has been running. They're more commonly spotted farther out in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland and Labrador or in the Arctic. Climate change is affecting the ocean's temperature, bringing North Atlantic right whales into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Belugas have also left the Gulf and headed to Cape Breton, but it's not clear why they wandered so far from home. This year, orcas have been seen off Cape Breton near Money Point, Cape Smokey and Flint Island, Zwamborn said. It could be the same pod, or it could be more than one.
Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Globe and Mail
Letters to the editor, June 7: ‘The AI revolution needs thoughtful regulation'
Re 'In its bid to rescue Afghans, Ottawa is fracturing their families' (Opinion, May 31): I can only imagine the relentlessly pounding and debilitating terror one must feel while anxiously awaiting safe passage out of Pakistan. I cannot understand why the Canadian immigration system is unable or, I shudder to think, unwilling to fix its flaw and expedite family unification on Canadian soil, given that many of these Afghans were indispensable allies for Canadians stationed in Afghanistan during the war. Perhaps a few terse pointers from Mark Carney could do the trick. Elsewhere, nearly 60 Afghan women's rights defenders have also been hiding in Pakistan ('Afghan women activists in Pakistan fear deportation as country cracks down on refugees' – April 22). Surely the Canadian government can do something to help these courageous women escape the awaiting brutality of both the Pakistani police and the Taliban. L.H. MacKenzie Vancouver Re 'A real reform mandate for the first federal AI minister' (Editorial, May 31): The artificial intelligence revolution needs thoughtful regulation. Another important AI-specific element of Evan Solomon's mandate letter should be policies to promote deployment of digital technologies by Canadian business to reskill and upskill our workforce, and to develop new products and services. Canada lags many countries, especially the United States, with the digital economy previously estimated by the Bank of Canada to account for as little as 5.5 per cent of GDP. Moreover, research shows that Canada faces serious digital skill shortages that are impacting labour supply, business efficiencies and growth. In the Industrial Revolution, it was the deployment of the steam engine that spurred economic growth through innovations worldwide. We should keep in mind that in the past, shared prosperity emerged only when technological advances were made to work for everyone. Which brings us back to the importance of sound regulation. Paul Jenkins Ottawa Re 'How to win a trade war: Canada, Trump and a delicate dance in asymmetric warfare' (Report on Business, May 31): 'Play defence: Reform our corporate tax regime.' One thing I am almost certain of in life is that corporate tax experts will never say such taxes are too low; they are always too high. The result is a race to the bottom, where less and less government revenue comes from corporate taxes. Where that process ends is obvious to me. How about approaching the issue from a different perspective: Who benefits from government spending? Canada has a track record of providing a safe, law-abiding environment within which corporations and their shareholders can have confidence that business can prosper. Should not the beneficiaries of programs requiring government expenditures to create that environment (defence spending being an example) pay their fair share of the costs? If for no other reason than to reverse income disparities between the very rich and the very poor, corporate taxes should not be cut any further. Peter Love Toronto Re 'How a Montreal family, a Baghdad embassy and the French government became entwined in a legal drama' (May 30): I would like to add another piece to your fascinating story on the Lawee family home being used as the French embassy in Baghdad. In the summer of 1981, I led a 10-person team in Baghdad for the initial research phase of Canadian architect Arthur Erickson's master plan for a 3.5-kilometre stretch of the Tigris riverfront and adjacent inland areas. Our team members were responsible for the detailed inventory and assessment of all 1,400 buildings within the Abu Nuwas Conservation/Development Project. They recalled one morning sitting in the office of our client, the chief architect of Baghdad, when it somehow came out that the French embassy was slated for demolition that day. When they hastily pointed out that the building had been earmarked in our report as heritage to be saved, our client picked up the phone, then and there, and the destruction was halted. Alan Bell Vancouver Re 'The perils of keeping identity hidden from kids conceived by sperm donors' (Opinion, May 31): Contributor Aviva Coopersmith details her bumpy conception story and the excruciatingly slow pace that donor-conceived persons in Canada and the greater world endure to maybe, possibly, someday gain greater access to their genetic past so they can fully own their present and future. My heart goes out to Ms. Coopersmith. I am the dad of a perfect two-year-old donor-conceived girl. I often lie awake at night worrying that my daughter will grow up with similar worries and wonderings. This is why I joined the board of Donor Conception Canada, a non-profit that helps people grappling with donor conception, be they prospective parents, active parents, donors or donor-conceived persons. We are all in this together. Joshua Levy Montreal Re 'Cattle have roamed Cambridge's city centre for hundreds of years. GPS is keeping the tradition going' (June 4): Very charming tradition. However, one minor – major? – problem has not been mentioned. I am talking about the rather copious amounts of 'pasture pastry' from each of the lovely beasts. How does the city deal with it: Cow diapers? Udder underwear? Just asking. Baily Seshagiri Ottawa Re 'I no longer knew how to find God, so nature became my church' (First Person, June 5): In a COVID-19 world, some have not returned to church. However, as rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, 'faith is faithfulness.' Authentic worship is a discipline, an exercise. It is not only about what we receive, it is about what we give. As the essay-writer acknowledges, there is no similar community in communing with nature. I used to say that the church would always be there when people choose to return to it. Not any more. Many congregations struggle to survive. When people do not attend their local church, they often do not support it. If she chooses to go back to church one day, I hope it is there for her. Keith McKee Reverend London, Ont. I appreciate the essay-writer's awakening to the world around her in nature. I call nature God's first scripture. The parallels between outdoor sanctuary and wooden pews and stained glass are true: They are spaces to inspire, to inhale the spirit. I don't go to church to meet God; God is everywhere. I go to meet others along the way, and am determined to create a space where we are awakened, comforted, tear-soaked and then sent outdoors to nature ready to bring love to feed the lost and lonely creatures of the world. For me, there is a call to engage and transform the world, one goldfinch or silver-haired human at a time. John Pentland Reverend Hillhurst United Church; Calgary .................................................................................................................................. Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Keep letters to 150 words or fewer. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@
