Receiving the Governor General’s award for her 27 years as a first responder brings tears to Allison Irvine’s eyes, but only because her father also won it years ago for his time as a firefighter.

Irvine, who hails from Shellbrook, was presented with the medal in Regina by Lieutenant Governor Russ Mirasty on Sept. 15. She said this particular medal is special.

“It means a lot to me,” she said, thinking about her father and how she came to join the Shellbrook Fire Department in the first place.

Irvine’s father was instrumental in helping her become a first responder. Her dad had several heart attacks, but refused to give up his work with the fire department, and her mother was worried about him.

“I became my dad’s little shadow. The fire calls would come in and I’d find out where they were going and kind of wait a bit then follow – because mom would worry about Dad and I was taking care of him” Irvine said. “Because of that, Dad said seeing as you’re tagging along anyway, you might as well just join the department. So I did.”

She said the job is both rewarding and emotional but she is glad to be doing it. That’s a sentiment her parents would share, right down to the winning of the same award, even as a first responder rather than a fire fighter.

“Good job, well deserved, a lot of hard work went into it, they would be very proud,” Irvine said of how she imagined her parent’s reactions. 

She segued from working as a firefighter only to also being a first responder because there was no one else on the department with the training at the time.

“It was a particularly bad year for accidents and we had no one trained medically to deal with patients,” Irvine remembered. She was the smallest person in the department at the time which was a benefit in the job and the training was available through Parkland Ambulance in Prince Albert.

The role is not without challenges, some of which can follow the responder home.

“We deal with everything from young children to elderly patients, dealing with trauma, especially with motor vehicle collisions,” she said. “Sometimes that can be really trying on a person but thankfully I have good supports with my first responder partners, my family. That keeps me sane through all of that.”

Grand Chief Brian Hardlotte of the Prince Albert Grand Council has kept his position by acclamation.

The Grand Council announced on Sept. 24 that there would be no need for the planned election for the job, set for October 26.

Hardlotte will not be required to take a leave of absence for the duration of the campaign as is normally the case.

This is his second term as Grand Chief.

There will still be an election for the job of Athabasca Vice Chief on October 26 with potential candidates being made public after they have been verified by Oct. 1

Those with more than 25 years of service in an area like policing, the military,
EMS, fire services and corrections were honoured in Prince Albert recently, with members of the Sask. Public Safety Agency included for the first time.

A group of honourees gathered at the EA Rawlinson Centre to be presented with medals from Lieutenant Governor Russ Mirasty on Sept. 23 and included in the list were the Chiefs of both the Prince Albert Police Service and the Fire Department.

“It was nice. I appreciate the recognition that goes to all emergency service personnel,” said Fire Chief Kris Olsen, who has been with the department for his entire 26 year career.

He has stayed in his position for one reason.

“I love the job, I love the city, I love the people in the city and I love serving,” Olsen said.

His career and words have a similar tone to that of Police Chief Johnathan Bergen, who also spend his entire career with Prince Albert Police except for two years with the Cudworth municipal police service.

“I started policing back in 1996 and its hard to believe that 25 years has already passed,” said Bergen. “What’s nice about today is being here with different colleagues, not just in policing but in emergency services across the community.”

Along with the two chiefs, Inspector Bradley Antonson (PAFD), Constable Cara Court (Ret., PAPS), Staff Sergeant Lawrie George (PAPS), Inspector Brent McDonald (PAPS) and Sergeant Rhonda Meakin (PAPS) and Coralee Dutchak (Parkland Ambulance) also received medals.

“It’s amazing to see that there have been so many contributions to public safety through the emergency service colleagues that we’ve grown alongside of in our careers,” said Bergen.

Bergen has been chief since 2018.

Lieutenant Governor Mirasty is a retired RCMP officer and commented on how that made giving out the medals special.

“Given my career with the RCMP, an opportunity to present the Saskatchewan Protective Services medal is particularly meaningful,” said Mirasty to the gathered crowd.  

I thank you on behalf of our sovereign and the people of Saskatchewan. Thank you for the excellence and integrity you bring to your role each and every day.”

He acknowledged that doing the jobs emergency workers do during the pandemic was particularly difficult.

“Working in protective services is challenging in any time, but the last year and a half have been extra challenging as we all know and certainly put extra pressure on you as service providers,” Mirasty stated. “You take care of us each and every day, be sure that you take care of yourselves.”

The province of Saskatchewan has cancelled all of the QR codes that have been issued as proof of vaccination and residents who have downloaded them are asked to delete them.

An issue arose when one person was found to have their information embedded in the QR codes of three other people. 

“Any QR codes are invalid and we ask individuals to dispose of them or delete them from devices or dispose of them if they are printed on paper,” said Davin Church, Vice President, Programs & Technology, eHealth Saskatchewan in a digital news conference on Sept. 24.

The issue was identified late on Sept. 23 and the SHA responded by shutting down the eHealth site and notifying Telus, the vendor. 

Access to the website was removed for the night and restored today but records will remain unavailable until Saturday. Then, the printed record will not include a QR code.

Church said that new QR codes will be issued early next week at which point people can issue themselves a new code on their eHealth account. 

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner has been notified.

“We are continuing to work through the resolution of that technical issue with our vendor,” he said.

Other forms of proof of vaccination are available, such as the cards issued when a person receives their vaccine.

While only one person has been identified as having an issue, up to 19 people may have already been affected.

The companies that created the QR code and the app for reading them are two separate companies and not connected, said Church.

He said that the incident required a very specific set of circumstances to align in order to happen and that is it not something that would be easy to re-create.

“However, we do know what the issue was and the vendor has worked to resolve that issue,” Church said.

They would not disclose technical details of how exactly the issue came up in the first place but did say that the type of information that came up depended on the app used to read it.

“The majority would have just shown a name and vaccination status so if they were vaccinated or not,” Church said. “In others, they would have seen name, date of birth and their vaccination information.”

The queue to access the eHealth site remains in place, which regulates the amount of traffic allowed on the site, something the province planned for the onset of the code availability last week.

“There is until Oct 1 when these are required for people, the former wallet cards are proof as well as previous forms that might have been printed out,” he explained.

The only thing that has changed is the cancellation of the code.

People are asked to contact eHealth Saskatchewan’s Privacy Officer if they have noticed another individual’s name appear when their QR code is scanned. Email at privacyandaccess@eHealthsask.ca.

. susan.mcneil@paherald.sk.ca

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Another death in the North Central zone has brought the total deaths after contracting COVID-19 to 75.

The death was reported on Sept. 24, along with 57 new cases of COVID, and seven new hospitalizations, leading to a total of 37 people in hospital after contracting the virus.

Of those in hospital, seven are in the ICU.

Some recoveries have led to a total of 501 active cases of COVID in the region. So far, 5,978 people have recovered after contracting the virus.

The province also reported 396 tests performed, an increase of 162 from the previous day.

Vaccination rates continue to increase with 495 doses reported and of those, 296 were first doses. The number of first doses has increased since the province announced that unvaccinated people would not be able to attend places like dine in restaurants, bars and events unless they could provide a negative COVID test.

The new rules come into effect on Oct. 1.

Provincially, as of September 24, there are 528 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 64,402 reported cases.

The new cases are located in the Far North West (37), Far North East (18), North West (96), North East (16), Saskatoon (96), Central West (15), Central East (20), Regina (48), South West (28), South Central (32) and South East (34) zones and thirty one (31) new cases have pending residence information.

Twenty (20) cases with pending residence information were reassigned to Far North East (from August 28 (1), September 20 (1)), North Central (from September 21 (1), September 22 (2)), Saskatoon (from September 20 (1), September 22 (3)), Regina (from April 21 (1), September 19 (1), September 21 (2)), Central East (From September 20 (1)), and South Central (from September 14 (1), September 16 (1), September 19 (4)) zones.

One (1) case in the Far North East zone (from September 9, 2021) was deemed a duplicate case and removed.

64,402 cases are confirmed

-15,520 cases are from the Saskatoon area

-15,497 cases are from the North area (6,564 North West, 6,554 North Central, 2,379 North East)

-13,279 cases are from the Regina area

-7,929 cases are from the Far North area (3,700 Far North West, 530 Far North Central, 3,699 Far North East)

-7,489 cases are from the South area (1,585 South West, 2,368 South Central, 3,536 South East)

-4,193 cases are from the Central area (1,164 Central West, 3,029 Central East)

-495 cases have pending residence information

4,734 cases are considered active and 59,005 cases are considered recovered.

Less than one-third (31.6 per cent) of new cases are in the age category of 20 to 39.

Less than one in five (18.4 per cent) of new cases eligible for vaccination (aged 12 years and older) were fully vaccinated.

As of September 24, a total of 276 individuals are hospitalized; including 215 inpatient hospitalizations and 61 ICU hospitalizations. Of the 276 patients, 216 (78.3 per cent) were not fully vaccinated.

Five (5) new deaths reported today. 663 Saskatchewan residents with COVID-19 have died with a case fatality rate of 1.0.

1,109,805 COVID-19 tests have been performed in the province.

As of September 22, when other provincial and national numbers are available from PHAC, Saskatchewan’s per capita rate was 934,036 tests performed per million. The national rate was 1,120,320 tests performed per million.

The 7-day average of new COVID-19 case numbers was 478 (39.7 new cases per 100,000).

A 37-year-old woman from Choiceland was found dead in a residence in the community at about 1:45 am.

Nipawin RCMP were called to the residence on Railway Avenue East on Sept. 24.  

The woman was declared deceased at the scene. Her family has been notified.

Officers took one individual into custody at the scene. There is no concern for public safety.

This investigation, which is being led by the Saskatchewan RCMP’s Major Crimes Unit South, is in its early stages.

Police say they are unable to release any more details at this time. An update will be provided when available.

A 16-year-old male from La Ronge is facing charges after a stabbing incident on Studer Street.

RCMP say that they were called to the street at about 10:10 pm on September 22 where they found a male youth suffering from stab wounds.

He was taken to hospital with serious injuries.

The accused youth, who can’t be identified as per the Youth Criminal Justice Act, is charged with one count of aggravated assault, Section 268, Criminal Code.

He will appear in court in La Ronge on September 23, 2021.

 The investigation continues with the assistance of the La Ronge General Investigation Section.

A body was found in the North Saskatchewan River on Sept. 21, near the Cecil Ferry, the RCMP said in a news release on Sept. 23.

The report was received at about 6:15 pm and the Prince Albert Fire Department was called to help remove the person from the water.

The identity of the person has not been confirmed and an autopsy is to be done.

Prince Albert RCMP, in partnership with the Saskatchewan Coroners Service, continue to investigate

One more person has died after contracting COVID-19 in the North Central zone, making a total of 73 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Hospitalizations have dropped by two and are now at 27 with seven people in the ICU.

On September 22, 29 new cases were reported, a reduction of 17 from the day before and there are now 528 active cases as 68 additional people are now considered recovered.

Of the new cases, nine were in North Central 1, 14 were in North Central 2 and six were in North Central 3.

So far, there have been 6,457 cases of COVID-19 in the entire zone.

The amount of tests performed is also dropping, with 212 completed for Sept. 22 reporting, 69 fewer than the previous day. So far, 74,165 tests have been done.

Vaccination rates have climbed since the province announced that unvaccinated people will not be able to enter certain venues (like restaurants, bars, concerts) as of October 1.

On Sept. 22, 232 new vaccine doses were reported with 112 additional people now fully vaccinated, meaning 120 people received their first dose.

Provincial highlights:

As of September 22, there are 426 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 63,415 reported cases.

The new cases are located in the Far North West (15), Far North East (22), North West (60), North Central (29), North East (7), Saskatoon (91), Central West (14), Central East (42), Regina (64), South West (14), South Central (16), South East (26) zones and twenty six (26) new cases have pending residence information.

Thirty (30) cases with pending residence information were reassigned to Far North West (from September 18 (1), September 19 (3), September 20 (1)), Far North East (from September 6 (1), September 17 (1), September 20 (1)), North West (from September 20 (1)), North Central (from September 20 (1)), North East (from September 15 (3), September 17 (1)), Saskatoon (from September 18 (1), September 20 (4)), Central West (from September 18 (1), September 20 (1)), Regina (from September 20 (1)), South West (from September 19 (2)), South Central (from September 15 (1), September 16 (1), September 20 (2)), and South East (from September 14 (1), September 20 (1)) zones.

63,415 cases are confirmed

15,294 cases are from the Saskatoon area

15,225 cases are from the North area (6,413 North West, 6,457 North Central, 2,355 North East)

13,168 cases are from the Regina area

7,847 cases are from the Far North area (3,654 Far North West, 525 Far North Central, 3,668 Far North East)

7,282 cases are from the South area (1,518 South West, 2,309 South Central, 3,455 South East)

4,123 cases are from the Central area (1,143 Central West, 2,980 Central East)

476 cases have pending residence information

Active cases

4,706 cases are considered active and 58,058 cases are considered recovered.

Around two-fifth (38.0 per cent) of new cases are in the age category of 19 and under.

Almost one in four (23.2 per cent) of new cases eligible for vaccination (aged 12 years and older) were fully vaccinated.

As of September 22nd, a total of 265 individuals are hospitalized; including 211 inpatient hospitalizations and 54 ICU hospitalizations. Of the 265 patients, 201 (75.8 per cent) were not fully vaccinated.

Five new deaths reported today. 651 Saskatchewan residents with COVID-19 have died with a case fatality rate of 1.0 per cent.

Testing information

1,101,974 COVID-19 tests have been performed in the province. As of September 20, 2021, when other provincial and national numbers are available from PHAC, Saskatchewan’s per capita rate was 927,730 tests performed per million. The national rate was 1,114,860 tests performed per million.

The 7-day average of new COVID-19 case numbers was 467 (38.8 new cases per 100,000).