Toronto hospital board got H1N1 shots early
Vaccinations were 'wrong decision,' doctor admits
Last Updated: Thursday, November 5, 2009 | 8:21 PM ET
CBC News
Members of the board of directors at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital were given H1N1 shots last Monday, at a time when many people in priority groups had yet to be immunized.
A letter written Nov. 2 by Joseph Mapa, CEO of Mount Sinai Hospital, 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 and Politics.
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.
'Optics don't look good'
Low told the CBC's Evan Solomon the decision to inoculate the board members on Oct. 26 was made before he knew there would be a shortage in the vaccine.
"The optics don't look good. The situation was different on Oct. 26. We didn't learn until Oct. 28 that there was going to be a shortage," Low said.
He said at the time the federal government's decision to give out the vaccine to priority groups wasn't based on a lack of availability of the serum. Rather, health officials wanted to ensure that priority groups wouldn't have to wait too long to receive the shots.
But issues with the manufacturer have since led to a shortage of the vaccine, so on Friday Ontario decreed that healthy adults would not be immunized in the coming weeks — only members of priority groups would receive shots.
"We weren't told there was going to be a shortage of vaccine for Canadians. And yeah, in hindsight it was my decision and it was, in hindsight, the wrong decision," Low said.
The revelations come amid an outcry over news that members of the Toronto Raptors and the Toronto Maple Leafs have already received the vaccine
