No probe into H1N1 shots for execs - for now
Last Updated: Friday, November 6, 2009 | 9:06 PM ET
CBC News
H1N1 flu shots have been given to a number of Toronto hospital executives. (Canadian Press) It won't be until after the H1N1 pandemic passes that the province looks into why and how some hospital board members got flu vaccine shots before many others in priority groups, according to Ontario's health minister.
Deb Matthews was speaking in response to revelations that board members of Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital, St. Michael's Hospital and the University Health Network — which represents Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto Western and Toronto General — were offered vaccinations last week before it was available to many people in high-risk groups.
"We can't take the vaccine out of anybody's arm," Matthews told a news conference in Toronto.
"I think once this pandemic is behind us, that will be the right time to really have a conversation about ... some of those outlier cases where judgment, perhaps, was not used as it ought to have been."
Dr. Bob Howard, CEO of St. Michael's, defended the decision Friday, saying that giving flu shots to board members is no different than giving them to other hospital workers.
The definition of who should be at the front of the line is "broader than health-care workers. We need people on the phones, we need people keeping the lights on, we need people volunteering to do tasks that we don't have staff to do — and our board members are part of that volunteer group," said Howard.
But Dr. Arlene King, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, told reporters that hospital board members can't be classified as health-care workers.
Earlier Friday, critics called on Matthews to consider disciplinary action against those who allowed non-priority groups to jump the queue for the swine flu shot.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the government must direct the College of Physicians and Surgeons to consider disciplinary action against doctors who inappropriately vaccinated people before the high-priority groups.
"The government needs to take seriously the issue of who's getting the vaccine, who's jumping ahead of the line. We want to see a full accounting of every single vaccination that's gone out the door inappropriately," said Horwath.
Matthews is already investigating whether pro athletes in Toronto — members of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors — jumped the queue in getting the H1N1 shot.
Meanwhile, two staff members of Alberta Health Services have been fired for allowing members of the NHL's Calgary Flames to receive swine flu shots before many other Albertans.
'Optics don't look good'
Earlier this week, it was revealed that board members at Mount Sinai Hospital were given H1N1 shots.
A letter written Nov. 2 by Joseph Mapa, CEO of Mount Sinai, stated "we were also able to provide the vaccine to those who attended our meeting last Monday and others presenting at our clinics in the main lobby etc." on Monday, Oct. 26, the earliest the H1N1 shots were available.
"This was based on the understanding that there would be sufficient vaccine available for everyone in the system and our philosophy of providing access to our community," said the letter, obtained by CBC-TV's Power & Politics with Evan Solomon.
In mid-September, the federal government laid out strict guidelines on who should receive the vaccine first.
In Ontario, it was determined that front-line health-care workers should receive the shots first, followed by people in certain priority groups who ran a higher risk of developing complications from the H1N1 virus than the general public.
The board members were inoculated at a clinic the hospital had opened to the public that Monday to "take the load off Toronto Public Health," said Dr. Donald Low, medical director of Ontario's public health laboratories and chief microbiologist at Mount Sinai.
He did not say whether only members of priority groups were vaccinated at the public clinic. But the news the next day of the swine flu death of Toronto teen Evan Frustaglio caused a spike in vaccine demand and the accompanying hours-long clinic lineups, Low said.
"And we changed our policy so that only high-priority individuals would get the vaccine, and we continued that policy since then," he said. "That first week, we vaccinated a third of the number of people that Toronto Public Health [did]. So I'm proud of the job that Mount Sinai has done."
The hospital has inoculated 8,000 people so far, he said.
Low said the decision to inoculate the board members on Oct. 26 was made before he knew there would be a shortage in the vaccine.
