Montrealers face long lines for H1N1 vaccine
Last Updated: Friday, November 6, 2009 | 1:49 PM ET
CBC News
Dozens of people lined up at a Montreal West Island school on Friday morning to get their H1N1 vaccine shot, as some 14 inoculation clinics across the region opened for their first official day of business.
The makeshift clinic at Allancroft School in Beaconsfield ran out of vaccination coupons at 10:30 a.m. on Friday because of the high demand, said CBC reporter Melissa Kent from the scene.
Organizers said they underestimated the time it takes to vaccinate children, and only managed to inoculate about 1,300 Thursday night. Those who weren't seen Thursday night returned Friday morning for priority shots. Other people showed up at the school as early as 5:30 a.m. to get their coupon.
Authorities running the clinic said people should come back next week because if they don't have a coupon by now, they won't get the vaccine on Friday.
The Allancroft school site is the only vaccination clinic on the West Island.
Proof of identity, illness needed for vaccine
Quebec health minister Yves Bolduc warned the province may run out of the vaccine because of a delivery shortfall.
Public health officials are also adhering to strict rules to make sure priority groups are inoculated first.
People will have to show documentation to prove they fall into one of the priority groups, either a birth certificate or a prescription, for people with suppressed immune systems.
In Montreal, only immuno-suppressed people, parents and siblings of babies under six months and pregnant women qualify for the vaccine in this round of inoculation. Grandparents and other caregivers are not included in that group.
"We don't have enough vaccine," said Dr. Richard Lessard, head of Montreal's public health department. "And there's so many people who take care of children who could show up in the vaccination centre and say 'I take care of this child.'"
"We wouldn't have enough vaccine, and if we start doing it for certain people, we will certainly lack the number of vaccines that we need to do the children."
Only women who are pregnant at more than 20 weeks' gestation will not have to provide any documentation, because their physical appearance will be enough proof, said the Montreal public health agency.
Quebec is very close to distributing an adjuvant-free vaccine for pregnant women concerned about the additive, the province's public health agency said, stressing that the regular shot is safe.
The province may eventually may expand the list of priority groups to speed up the process. "We may form sub-categories based on geography or neighbourhood risk" said Alain Poirier, agency director.
Province defends priority shots for pharmaceutical employees
GlaxoSmithKline's decision to vaccinate its own employees won't affect the province's mass vaccination campaign, Poirier assured.
The Quebec-based pharmaceutical company set up vaccination clinics at its production facility in Quebec City this week for company employees and their families.
Poirier said there isn't any issue with GlaxoSmithKline workers taking priority, because they are "critical workers," but he disagreed with their families jumping the queue.
He said the general vaccination campaign won't be affected by the private clinics in any way, because GlaxoSmithKline's supply of the drug is being provided through the federal government's allotment of the vaccine, and not Quebec's supply.
Three Quebecers have died from complications caused by swine flu infections — two in Gatineau and one in Chateauguay, southwest of Montreal.
Doctors continue to criticize Quebec's vaccination campaign, saying it's too little, too late.
With hundreds of cases being diagnosed every day across the province, the campaign is progressing far too slowly to have a significant impact on any outbreaks, said Dr. Karl Weiss, a microbiologist at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital in Montreal.
Quebec should have chosen to deliver the vaccine through medical clinics and doctors' offices, instead of setting up temporary shot sites, he said.
