On November 4, 2009, CBC News reported that the province of Alberta “is investigating how some Calgary Flames players and their families received the swine flu vaccine last week at a special clinic with the help of Alberta Health Services.”
Vaccines had to be diverted from high-risk members of the general public in order to inoculate the hockey players. Two people were fired by Alberta’s health authority for approving the scheme.
But, as a Canwest News Service story published in The Calgary Herald (November 8, 2009) points out, “It’s part of what appears to be growing tension over the perception that a privileged few are getting access to flu shots ahead of targeted priority groups, such as pregnant women and young children.”
H1N1 Shots for the Privileged Few
More and more evidence is emerging that some people are able to buy their way to the front of the queue for the limited vaccine supply and get their influenza shots ahead of at-risk groups:
- On November 7, 2009, The Montreal Gazette reported that, “As thousands of Montreal adults wait anxiously to get their H1N1 flu shots next month, the top 200 donors of the Jewish General Hospital have already been inoculated.”
- On November 6, 2009, The Associated Press reported that, “Some of New York’s biggest companies, including Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, received doses of swine flu vaccine for at-risk employees, drawing criticism that the hard-to-find vaccine is going first to the privileged.”
- Also on November 6, 2009, CBC News reported that, “…board members of Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, St. Michael’s Hospital, and the University Health Network…were offered vaccinations last week before it was available to many people in high-risk groups.”
General Public Shivers in Long Lines
On Prince Edward Island, The Guardian covered (October 30, 2009) what has become a typical scene at H1N1 clinics across Canada: “Hundreds of Islanders lined up for swine flu shots again Thursday, but many were turned away by police unless they had young children or were parents of babies.”
The Globe and Mail’s Michael Valpy tells the story of Winnipeg school teacher Kelly Fuerst (November 7, 2009). She is quoted as saying that she knows of at least 10 people who were not in priority groups who got flu shots at a University of Manitoba public clinic. “But when Ms. Fuerst’s husband went to the clinic with their severely disabled son, he was told that, because of a vaccine shortage, caregivers of high-risk people – like their son – no longer qualified.”
Failure to Produce Vaccine
The federal government is now taking the heat for mishandling the production of H1N1 vaccine. Ottawa contracted the production of the vaccine to a single supplier, GlaxoSmithKline, but told the company to produce the seasonal flu vaccine first.
This has created a shortage, made worse by large numbers of people who are not at risk of developing serious complications from swine flu clogging the lines at clinics intended for priority cases.
Now, according to Sharon Kirkey of Canwest News Service (November 8, 2009), “With H1N1 now accounting for virtually all the flu being diagnosed in Canada, critics say Canada was wrong not to have halted production of the regular seasonal flu shots and switched production to H1N1 vaccine sooner.”
Kirkey quotes Ontario’s former chief medical officer of health, Dr. Richard Schabas as saying: “The consequence of that is that we’ve got lots of seasonal flu vaccine, but no seasonal flu, and not enough H1N1 vaccine, and lots of H1N1. It’s backwards.”
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