YORKTON - Society for the Involvement of Good Neighbours (SIGN) will continue to be mask‐friendly, with staff continuing to use masks and physical distancing whenever meeting clients and other staff after provincial COVID-19 mandates and restrictions are lifted Monday (Feb. 28).
In keeping with provincial changes, proof of vaccination and self‐isolation for those with symptoms is no longer required for staff or visitors but SIGN is encouraging visitors to its facilities, and clients meeting with staff, to wear masks until late March.
“Our sole focus is, and always has been to ensure the safety and health of our clients and staff,” SIGN Executive Director Andrew Sedley noted. “COVID‐19 continues to be an emerging disease and remains a category 1 communicable disease. Vaccine intervention is available, as are other precautions which we continue to recommend to clients and staff.”
SIGN staff will continue to wear masks in SIGN facilities and when providing services to clients indoors and outdoors. Clients will be encouraged to wear masks and maintain physical distancing if meeting with staff indoors.
Only the front main entrance at SIGN on Broadway will be kept uplocked, while at the Elton Davidge Building on North Street the front doors will be locked and visitors are asked to ring the doorbell, since that entrance is not staffed. Visitors to both buildings will be offered masks if they do not have one.
If staff are meeting clients in their home or elsewhere in the community, SIGN staff will wear a mask at all times, and will offer masks to clients if they do not have one. Staff may reschedule support services provided in SIGN facilities or the client’s home if client family members are ill or show symptoms of illness, as has always been the case.
Sedley notes that these practices are the same as SIGN implemented when provincial restrictions were lifted in July of 2021.
“The measures adopted by SIGN are in keeping with recommendations from local public health and Saskatchewan Health Authority officials and will be evaluated again prior to the end of March,” he said. “Many other Yorkton and area community service organizations are adopting similar measures.”
