Clinic doors slam shut
Published Wednesday November 4th, 2009
Pandemic: Lack of vaccine continues to curtail H1N1 influenza immunization program across New Brunswick
Flu clinic doors slammed shut in Saint John and surrounding areas on Tuesday as dwindling supplies of vaccine finally ran out.
A total 79 H1N1 clinics were postponed across the province on Tuesday - 69 of them in the Saint John area.
The majority of the clinics were intended for schoolchildren.
Health Department officials warned that more postponements are likely across the province in the coming days.
It's expected most of the postponed clinics won't reopen until after Remembrance Day - a serious delay that comes as the pandemic flu virus is spreading rapidly across the province.
"It's the vaccine supply," Public Health spokeswoman Danielle Phillips said in an interview on Tuesday.
"Like all other Canadian jurisdictions, the federal government is telling us to anticipate less supply than what we were expecting for the weeks ahead."
The vaccine manufacturer has switched a production line to make more of the unadjuvanted product for pregnant women, significantly stalling the H1N1 implementation plan in Canada. The adjuvanted vaccine contains compounds that help boost immunity.
Provinces receive their vaccine supply through the Public Health Agency of Canada and the vaccine is delivered to provinces weekly on a per capita basis.
The vaccine has not arrived in the amounts that were originally projected.
New Brunswick received just 11,000 doses of the regular, adjuvanted vaccine this week - a quarter of what it expected. It also received 4,000 doses of the unadjuvanted product, which will be immediately distributed to pregnant women.
The clinic closures in New Brunswick came as federal auditor general Sheila Fraser accused the federal government of dropping the ball in preparing for pandemics and other national emergencies.
In her annual fall report released Tuesday, Fraser said a federal emergency response plan has been languishing in the draft stages for six years, awaiting approval from Public Safety Canada.
Health officials in New Brunswick said they were set to roll out the vaccine as soon as it arrived in the province. But as the supply dried up, the province's clinic schedule had to be radically altered.
"For a couple weeks we will be getting smaller shipments than what we were supposed to be getting," Phillips said.
"And there have had to be a lot of clinics postponed."
Since Monday there has been a total of 70 closures in Saint John area, 15 in Moncton, five in the Acadie-Bathurst area, two in the Restigouche area, one in Fredericton and one in Woodstock, according to the government's website as of Tuesday evening.
Only three school clinics in the Bay of Fundy area - Grand Manan, Deer Island and Campobello Island - remain on the list to receive the vaccine before Remembrance Day.
There are still several clinics set to open in the Fredericton, Miramichi and Woodstock area according to the government's website.
While the distribution seems unfair, Phillips said cancellations are done evenly across the province by the two health authorities, meaning that more cancellations are expected today and over the remainder of the week.
"The regional health authorities make the decision on how to get what to whom," she said. "When they find out the supplies aren't there, they then figure out which clinics need to be moved.
"You are going to see that change every day."
Susan Ness, the executive director of the Moncton Hospital and Sackville Memorial Hospital for RHA B urged individuals experiencing flu-like symptoms such as cough, fever, general aches and pains, sore throat, and runny nose, to stay away from visiting patients in hospitals.
If members of the public must visit, they will be asked to wear a mask and clean their hands with an alcohol hand rinse.
"Whenever you have significant increases coming through the door there is no doubt that it causes extra stress," Ness said. "We are trying to extend capacity to deal with it."
Ness said she has seen as much as a 50-per-cent spike in hospital emergency room visits, something that is plaguing regular operations.
Flu assessment centres are being established across New Brunswick to deal with a huge surge of visitors to the province's hospital emergency rooms.
The regional health authorities are urging the public to use ERs as a last resort.
"We are trying to take some of these kind of cases away to free up the emergency department to deal with true emergencies because they don't stop," Ness said. "We want to be efficient and effective with every patient that comes through the door as possible."
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Comments (18)
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inmates
hockey players
nursing home residents (many of whom actually have the antibodies already)
friends and family of health care workers and politicians
What is worse? The incompetence of the decision making- or the stupidity of our politicians in not owning up to the mistakes?!
it was made very clear that priority groups should be getting the vaccine first, if people stuck to that, there would be sufficient.
as a society, we are judged by how we treat the least fortunate of us.
To D H in Quispamsis..my friend's two nephews ages 4 and 6 are in hospital in Ontario with H1N1. The youngest is on a respirator.
http://www1.gnb.ca/cnb/H1N1Event/regionB-e.asp
This province has handles mass immunizations before - smallpox and polio vaccines to all school children.. and they were handled well.
The organization of this mass immunization is woefully inadequate. This province needs to get it's act together and quit scheduling and then postponing clinics - they know the number of doses they'll need per school based on the permission slips, add the number of additional doses for younger siblings, arrange for the delivery of the vaccine, achedule the clinic and give the shots. Schedule people don't just say -" line up!" This seemingly randon, shot in the dark of finding a clinic and maybe getting a shot is completely ridiculous, increases the anxiety of parents (and others) and adds to the increasing fear that NBers are experiencing. Get your act together, Dept of Health, before there is a riot at one of these postponed or 'short dosed' clinics.
The permission slips went out about 2 weeks ago. Way back then parents and students said no big deal and opted out. Now however everyone is whipped into a frenzy and are changing their minds. These permission slips will in no way be a predictor for how many will opt for the shot on the day it is given!