Not only were the Calgary Flames players vaccinated for H1N1 flu in a queue-jumping manoeuvre, but their families were, too. Line-ups while the clinics were open were all-day waits, and thousands of people simply turned away - the vaccination clinic have been shut down now because there is not enough vaccines to go around (clinics may soon re-open for ONLY babies and pregnant women to get vaccinated).
What do you think of that?
Calgarian here.
My fire fighter husband hasn’t been vaccinated yet either, neither have the police. He’s getting a couple of calls a shift to respond to flu at home calls and obviously has to respond.
i voted vaccinate the athletes and not their families.
reason being i’d rather not watch sports teams that are crippled by a flu virus. Too much press and hype on H1N1, because of all that hype the shortages came about. Media need to take a chill pill and relax on all the fear mongering.
The shortages came about because they were late getting started on the vaccine and the virus did not grow well. It has zero to do with hype.
Medical workers, police and fire fighters, as well as teachers, at risk groups, etc should be first tier.
Second tier should be people who travel a lot, and are at increased risk of contacting and carrying the disease. (the NHL players would probably be in here, their family wouldn’t unless they travel a lot with them.)
Third their should be everyone else – Me. The Healthy 18-45 year old who doesn’t deal with slimy children and live in a congested area with lots of bodily proximity.
Was the flu vaccinations part of the supply that Alberta was allotted or did the NHL procure a supply of its own.
Declan
The same thing happened here, the QMJHL team received vaccinations first and people are up in arms about it. They shouldn’t get special privilege because of their sport maybe but I think vaccinating groups who travel frequently makes some sense too so I’m OK with it.
There is still a question about that - as far as I can tell, they got a batch of the general supply somehow (which it doesn’t sound like they were supposed to have). I can see the argument for vaccinating the players, who will travel around a lot. I’m having a harder time seeing the case for their families, although I guess if your wife isn’t sick, it’s harder for you to get sick. It has left a really bad taste in people’s mouths, though, when no one else can get vaccinated if they want to.
According to some reports, the players were vaccinated by a private clinic, which obtained a small supply from the province.
Similar hoopla here in TO about a private clinic that is offering its patients wait-free access to the vaccine, so long as they’re a) a registered patient at the clinic (which requires paying a $2000 up-front fee, IIRC) and b) nominally fall into a high-risk category (though we only have their word about the latter qualification). Article here.
The Ministry of Health has tried to placate taxpayers by telling us that they’ll be investigating how this could have happened given that most people have been waiting 6-10 hours in line to get vaccinated while private clinic patients are breezing right through, but the whole thing smacks of a two-tier healthcare system… and we all know how little love there is for that particular concept 'round these parts.
Anyway, while Jarome Iginla’s justifications in interviews were pretty silly, it’s nothing compared to MP Hedy Fry’s ludicrous comments about making Parliament Hill MPs and workers a high risk group because they shake hands with lots of people every day. I just wanted to reach through the TV and smack that twit upside the head… ugh.
http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/cbc-article.aspx?cp-documentid=22507682 Someone got in trouble for it.
Really though, who hasn’t wanted to slap Hedy Fry at some time?
Well, I didn’t know who she was before, but NOW I want to slap her.
My take is that the hockey players got the preferential healthcare treatment that they usually get, except this time the uproar is so great that they had to turn someone into a sacrificial goat.
I just heard on the radio that Kipper has H1N1. It was just gossip from the jockey, but how funny would that be?
From FloatyGimpy’s link:
I take this to mean that, even if private clinics are actually dispensing the shot to some individuals, they still have to request their share of the vaccine based on the broad public health policies for H1N1 that AHS has in place. You probably can’t just say to AHS “We’re a private clinic and we need some vaccine.” I’ll bet you are meant to confirm that those receiving it will be in the appropriate high-risk groups, at least during this early stage when availability is so limited.
That’s ridiculous. Vaccinate athletes before not-at-risk groups? Maybe. Before pregnant females and infants? Hell no.
I was’nt sure how the vaccine was being distributed. I was thinking that if the vaccine is going out world wide, the NHL is probably a large enough organization to procure a supply on the world market. Since that turns out not to be the case, and it was obtained through heath Alberta, some people have some splaining to do.
This is going to go down in the record books , as to how not distribute vaccinations.
Declan