Prince Albert, Sask. care home reopening in 'mindful' way

While mask mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions are no longer in effect in most of Saskatchewan, long-term care homes are working to balance safety with allowing more visitors.

Mont St Joseph Home in Prince Albert has been slowly opening up to more visitors since December, but CEO Wayne Nogier says the pandemic isn’t in the rearview mirror just yet.

“The reopening of facilities needs to be done in a mindful way to ensure that we’re balancing both the needs to keep our residents safe, but also to have families reintroduced into our building in a large scale fashion.”

Nogier says enhanced screening at the door has been a good layer of protection for residents during the Omicron wave, but the best method of protection right now is testing. Families are given test kits to do at home before coming to visit.

"At our facility, like a number of others, families play an active role in providing care to residents in our building and so they’re essential to doing the work we do every single day."

Residents are allowed two family or support persons at a time.