Hospitals in the region aren’t taking ’flu vaccinations seriously enough, says the CEO and chief medical officer of the Northwestern Health Unit, and they could see staff who don’t get their shots staying home this winter.
“Last year, when the ’flu season was seeing few incidents, we went to the hospitals to try and get them to implement an exclusion policy,” noted Dr. Pete Sarsfield.
“Basically, we were saying employees don’t have to get ’flu shots, they just can’t come to work if they don’t,” he remarked.
“It’s just like a metal detector at the airport. You don’t have to go through it. But if you don’t, you can’t go on the plane,” he added.
But even after that, no facilities had an exclusion policy that the health unit knows of, said Dr. Sarsfield.
“So last week, we went to the hospitals in the Kenora and Rainy River District and told them, if you have any staff that are not vaccinated, that under Section 22 of the Health Promotion and Protection Act, we order you to exclude them,” he stressed.
Dr. Sarsfield said last week in Kenora that potentially less than 60 percent of staff at Lake of the Woods District Hospital there were getting ’flu shots. And just this past Monday, the health unit’s new hard-line regarding employee ’flu shots came into effect at that facility.
With a potential ’flu outbreak at Lake of the Woods District Hospital, visitors no longer are allowed there unless it’s a critical situation (childbirth, ill child with parent, etc.).
And as a result, hospital staff not vaccinated at least two weeks prior to the date the restriction was imposed will have to stay home without pay. Staff who refuse to get a ’flu shot will not be allowed back to work until all cases of influenza have been dealt with, or at the end ’flu season in April, said Dr. Sarsfield.
“Influenza is a potentially lethal disease but because it’s been around so long, society has become kind of nonchalant about it,” he noted. “The Centre for Disease Control in the U.S. recently said they expect 65,000 deaths this ’flu season.
“It’s very serious,” he stressed.
Dr. Sarsfield said health units across Ontario, the Ontario Medical Association, the Ministry of Health, and other agencies have been recommending for years that health care institutions and facilities make ’flu immunization obligatory.
“The Northwestern Health Unit has been informing, then coaxing, then badgering the health care institutions for at least the past five years,” he noted. “We’ve been saying get your staff immunization levels up.
“With the long-term care facilities, we’ve had some success in the region. They run an average of 75-90 percent compliance,” he remarked.
“The hospitals have been less successful. We bring in consultants, send mail-outs, send home information with the employees. But even with that, the staff immunization rate is 40-60 percent, in some places, maybe 70.
“It’s not high enough,” said Dr. Sarsfield.
“Those institutions will say, ‘You’re going to close us down because we have staff that aren’t immunized.’ And I say, ‘Do you realize the ’flu would close you down anyway if your staff weren’t immunized?’
“‘Encouraging’ staff to get the vaccine is a step towards avoiding absenteeism,” remarked Dr. Sarsfield.
“Basically, it’s not an option. It should be the obligation of health care workers to protect the public—even if they don’t care about protecting themselves,” he argued.
“About all I can say is Dr. Sarsfield, under the Health Promotion and Protection Act, is empowered to do it,” Wayne Woods, CEO of Riverside Health Care Facilities, Inc. here, said yesterday.
“Generally, our compliance is pretty good,” added Woods, noting an average of about 70 percent of all staff at the facilities in Fort Frances, Emo, and Rainy River have been immunized so far this fall.
“But we can’t force people to take it,” he remarked.
Meanwhile, compliance is much better at Rainycrest Home for the Aged here, where administrator Jill Colquhoun said 84 percent of staff (143 of 165) there currently is immunized, as well as all the residents.
“We’ve had a great response so far. We’re hoping to get everyone,” she noted. “The immunization of staff in our home is important because it helps us protect the residents, the employees, and their families.”
Colquhoun said that, like the hospitals, any staff who have not had a ’flu shot this year will not be allowed to work if there is a confirmed outbreak.
She added families and friends of residents there should stay away from the home if they are feeling unwell, and also are encouraged to be vaccinated.
In related news, Dr. Sarsfield said the strain of vaccine currently being administered by the health unit and area health care facilities will provide some protection against the types of influenza now making their way through North America.
It’s expected that 75 percent of all illnesses due to ’flu this season will be of the A Fujian strain while the other 25 is the A Panama—the latter of which the vaccine contains.
But Dr. Sarsfield noted A Panama and A Fujian are, in fact, related, and therefore about 50 percent of the people, assuming they’re not in a high-risk group, who got the vaccine this year will not get the ’flu if exposed to it while the other half only will experience minor symptoms.
He noted the vaccine is “extremely safe,” and the great majority of those who get it will not get sick, but may only experience a soreness in the arm they got their shot in, or mild nausea for a day or two afterwards.
(Fort Frances Times)
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
