Province to roll out rapid COVID testing

The provincial government is aiming to roll out more than 700,000 rapid point-of-care (POC) tests to allow high-risk populations and front-line workers to more easily access testing.

The POC tests will be offered to long-term and personal care homes (many of which have already had access to these tests), shelters, detox facilities, group homes and schools. The tests will also be made available to paramedics, firefighters and police as well as some pharmacies and dental offices.

Earlier this month, the province faced criticism over its slow rollout of rapid testing as just two per cent of the tests it had received from the federal government had been used.

Scott Livingstone, CEO of the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), said part of the delay was that sites administering rapid tests were required to have a lab licence. Now the provincial government has eliminated that barrier.

“The government has amended the Medical Lab Licensing Regulations to exempt potential additional sites from requiring a lab licence to deliver these safe and simple tests,” Livingstone told reporters during a news conference Thursday.

“This means we can take steps to get more than 700,000 rapid test kits available from the federal government allocation to a wide variety of additional sites in the province.”

Those administering the tests still need to be trained on how to use them and on how to properly report the data back to the SHA.

Livingstone said fire departments, police services and dental offices will likely not have the capacity on their own to do this. To help with this, the Ministry of Health is putting together a request for pre-qualifications tender in the hopes of bringing on a third party to deliver testing to these locations.

Livingstone could not provide a set date for when the tests will be distributed, but he hopes it will be in the “next few weeks,” depending on how quickly the province can get the tender filled.