An updated policy with Saskatoon’s Medavie Health Services West (MHS West) will have paramedics asking all patients to wear a surgical mask during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Medavie public affairs director Troy Davies said this new practice was implemented last week and came from a Saskatchewan Health Authority recommendation to ensure frontline paramedics are being safe. “In any emergency, if you fall and you break your ankle, the last thing you’re thinking about is to say, ‘oh, I was in Phoenix, Ariz., last week.’” Davies said the new policy a matter of getting treatment quicker. “Rather than us walking up, realizing that you are in self-isolation and that we didn’t know,” Davies said. “We’d have to go back to the ambulance, don our PPE