Health Committee on May 27th, 2020

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Help me again with this bit at the beginning, this initial.... You said that the government had requested that you procure the PPE. How did that happen?

[Conrad Sauvé]

Well, it was to do the shipping, actually. We did some of the procurement outside, but the Chinese Red Cross was on the recipient end of this. This is very common in these types of emergencies.

We're used to, as I said, not just in this situation but in previous situations, to handling humanitarian gifts. This is what was at play. It is a normal practice for us to do that, and we did so.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Sorry, still again, did the Public Health Agency call you up and say, “Mr. Sauvé, I need you to send a bunch of PPE to China”? I'm curious as to how this all ended up happening.

[Conrad Sauvé]

No. We have a partnership. We have an ongoing partnership to help with GAC, Global Affairs Canada. We do this on a regular basis. They activated that agreement in terms of facilitating that.

This is what we do. We've been doing this for some time. We have the logistical capacity to do that and—

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Sauvé; I have only about 15 seconds.

It was approved by the Minister of Health, Minister Hajdu. These internal documents say she's the one who ended up approving it.

If it's an existing agreement with GAC, then how did the Minister of Health weigh into this?

[Conrad Sauvé]

Well, GAC has to go outside, I guess....

I'm not sure I have the answer to your question. We have a system to send this off, in terms of a previous agreement that we activated.

I could get some additional answers to you, if you want. Again, this is something we have done in the past.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Mr. Chair, do you mind allowing Mr. Sauvé to perhaps submit some additional documents to the committee to help clear up some of what happened early on with this shipment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Absolutely.

Mr. Sauvé, if you wish to send more information, please send it to the clerk of the committee. It will be translated as appropriate and distributed to the whole committee.

[Conrad Sauvé]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jeneroux.

We go now to Mr. Van Bynen.

Mr. Van Bynen, please go ahead, for five minutes.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses who are here today for the important work you do in protecting our communities and those who are most vulnerable throughout these difficult times.

My first question is for Mr. Sauvé.

Last month, Leger conducted a study for the Canadian Red Cross on the social and psychological impacts related to COVID-19. I'm hoping you can share that study with the committee after the meeting, as I'm very interested in reading it. I'm sure that my colleagues would be interested in seeing it as well.

In the meantime, could you please share with the committee some of the findings of that study?

[Conrad Sauvé]

Absolutely. I think the important thing is that this is a poll we're doing every two weeks. We wanted to establish a bit of a baseline, because, of course, this is a new reality to have so many people quarantined at home. It's to understand what they're living through. What you saw was the first of those polls.

I think what we saw from the first one was a high level of anxiety among young Canadians—20-year-olds—about their future. Of course, it's understandable given how they're embarking on life with a lot of uncertainty, and it appeared that way in the study.

I can share the first report. It's in both languages.

In the second report, which we released today, we dug a little further into this situation, on vulnerabilities of seniors as well. It's coming out, again, that people living in the community are feeling anxieties. This one is just coming out now.

In the first one we highlighted the concern—maybe not as visible—of people who are starting their lives seeing a lot of uncertainty and feeling anxiety related to that.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you.

There is a general acceptance that there will be a second wave, or even a third wave, of this pandemic. Beyond that, with all the global travel that we've been seeing, we'll be faced with these kinds of situations more often.

What have you learned so far that you need to consider in building capacity for the likelihood of another pandemic of this scope and scale?

[Conrad Sauvé]

Certainly until there's a vaccine, but even if there is a vaccine, there's no guarantee that there won't be another element of pandemic. I think the area where the Red Cross contributes the most is in the surge capacity. We've been building that up to face natural disasters, again supporting provinces and municipalities as well as the federal government.

I think the added area here is the whole health care side. As I mentioned earlier, we've supported 40 institutions in infection control, and we've elaborated a whole program to support community organizations. We're seeing a big need for understanding how we protect ourselves and live in an environment of COVID.

What's the appropriate training, not just in terms of PPE? There's a lot of talk about PPE, but I think we also have to emphasize training on how to use protective equipment, how to manage social distancing and how to work in this environment.

This is the area where we're growing. With regard to the standing capacity, as we're increasing this capacity to support public authorities, what do we need to maintain afterward, going forward?

Finally, as I mentioned, we've deployed two parts of our field hospital. This was all funded for international work. We've deployed that domestically, so we're looking at what kind of standing capacity we need to maintain in terms of equipment.

I will add one other thing that I didn't mention earlier. At one point we're obviously going to go into mass vaccination campaigns. How can the Red Cross support that, and how can we make sure that we support access to vaccination for vulnerable communities in the north?

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Dr. Tien, could you answer that question as well?

[Dr. Homer Tien]

The support for mass vaccinations in the north?

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Not necessarily. I mean what you've learned so far from this pandemic, and how we should give some thought to building capacity for the likelihood of another pandemic of this scope and scale.

[Dr. Homer Tien]

Thank you for the clarification.

Like my colleague from the Red Cross, I think that surge capacity is an important aspect of it. I think part of the challenge for our northern communities, particularly remote indigenous communities, is getting that surge capacity to those communities in a timely fashion. Certainly, across Canada there are multiple air ambulance and critical care transport organizations that have dedicated airlifts.

One of the things that we've learned during this pandemic is that the commercial air carriers aren't immune to major business disruptions. When they go down, a lot of the supply chain and HR resources that are dependent on travel by aircraft, such as diagnostic support, are not able to reach the remote north.

I think the air ambulance services that have dedicated aircraft can play a large role in that and need to be part of that thinking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Van Bynen.

We will go now to Dr. Kitchen.

Dr. Kitchen, please go ahead for five minutes.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, everybody, for being here today and for you're presentations.

Dr. Tien, my wife is going to be impressed that I've had a chance to talk to you today. When I was doing my residency, she was a pediatric intensive care nurse at The Hospital for Sick Children and flew with Ornge. That was just 37 years ago.

I appreciate your point. Since I've been out here in Saskatchewan, I have been able to talk with Andrea Robertson, who is the CEO of STARS. I'm interested to know what sort of communication you've had with organizations like STARS, and LifeFlight in the Maritimes, on this issue.

[Dr. Homer Tien]

We actually work very closely with all of them to share best practices. I think we realize that STARS does a wonderful job in what they do; LifeFlight as well. As we know, it's about sharing best practices. In fact, we set up a Canadian organization, the Canadian Transport Medicine Association, that meets annually to share best practices, and we have a lot of collaboration back and forth.

We actually have an academic symposium where we have a supplement to publish some of our learning, including some of our stuff on what we've learned about the COVID-19 pandemic and how we conduct air ambulance transports in that environment.

To answer your question succinctly, we collaborate a lot with them and appreciate that relationship.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Are they experiencing similar challenges to you?

[Dr. Homer Tien]

My understanding is, and this was based on a conversation maybe a month ago, I don't think they've seen the same spike in volumes—lucky for them. I think Ontario, unfortunately, has more COVID patients and more ICU patients. Because we do the transports in between, to access critical care capacity, we've actually done quite a few and I don't think they've had as many in Alberta or in Saskatchewan, thankfully.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I was intrigued by your comment on your surge team and in particular your 46 paramedic volunteers and obviously the challenges that you have with them in providing services, as you indicated, in confined spaces to make certain that they're protected...and the airway management. Is that something that you're actually putting out there to these other air ambulances across the country?

[Dr. Homer Tien]

I think we had the opportunity to present that but, to be honest, I think in the time of COVID it's been more about communicating the capability to our northern partners. Certainly, I think our remote indigenous communities are particularly interested. I've spent a fair bit of time trying to communicate that capability because, unfortunately, if there is a surge in the northern indigenous communities, or any rural community for that matter, we can't predict where and we can't augment all of the hospitals all at once for an indefinite period of time.

From my point of view, I think the surge team is the way to go in terms of one hospital or one area having a regional surge in COVID cases because we have air assets. We can transport these people quickly to augment their hospital staff while we arrange with the provincial government transport to disperse the patients across the system.