SASKATOON -- A Saskatoon family physician said she is concerned that her office has seen a drop in appointments during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"That made us quite concerned that people were downplaying some symptoms and perhaps staying home when they normally would come and seek medical care,” said Dr. Shanna Fenton who works at City Centre Family Physicians.

However, Fenton said those numbers are slowly rising now that the province is starting to reopen. The first phase of the plan, which allows some medical services that were previously orders to close to reopen, went into effect on Monday.

"This week, it's a little bit closer to what our normal is. It was definitely slow for about two weeks but we're back to the same phone volume that we had before.”

She said her office is changing the way it sees patients, now taking 75 per cent of appointments over the phone and video.

"We found surprisingly that we can deliver a lot of good medical care over the phone but there are definitely some cases where we have to see a patient and examine a patient before we can provide a diagnosis and appropriate treatment,” Fenton said.

Twenty five per cent of appointments are done in-person at City Centre Family Physicians, according to Fenton.

In those cases, Fenton said extra precautions are taken including having staff wear personal protective equipment, screening patients and practicing strict cleaning and disinfection procedures.

Her office is also asking patients to wait out in their cars to limit potential contact with other patients.

Earlier this week, the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) put out a message telling people not to let their COVID-19 fears prevent them from seeking routine medical care.

In March 2020, emergency department volumes declined by about 18 per cent from normal ER volumes throughout the year, the health authority said.

“While we are busy, we need people with medical emergencies to still seek care. We want to remind the public that the ER remains a safe place to come and be treated should you have emergent concerns,” the SHA said in a statement to CTV News.

The SHA said people who have urgent medical issues should go to the hospital or call 911, and people who feel unwell or have underlying health conditions should call the doctor or go to a walk-in clinic.

"We will end up with more problems than just coronavirus if we ignore routine medical care, if we ignore taking care of chronic medical diseases, or if we ignore taking care of things that could have an easy treatment initially and then turn out to be more complicated to treat,” Fenton said.