Perth-Wellington MPP John Wilkinson believes local health units are finding more success than challenges in distributing H1N1 vaccine across Ontario.
Minister of Revenue Wilkinson covered a wide range of topics, including the H1N1 virus inoculation campaign at a press conference.
He said that Minister of Health Deb Matthews “was up to her eyeballs in the biggest vaccination program in the history of our country.”
There is “no other country in the world that is going to inoculate 75% of the entire population, or [have] sufficient vaccine to inoculate 75% of the population.”
He said it is something that has never been done before, so there are issues of supply, which the federal government is in charge of; issues of coordination involving the provincial government; and then each of the 35 different health units have their own plans tailor-made for their own areas.
“Some are having more success than others.”
He said in Toronto there are huge lineups.
He added there are those who believe H1N1 not to be serious, but he cited the death of a young boy in Toronto. “That’s when the lineups started.”
Wilkinson said the province received 2.5 million vaccination doses from the federal government. Those were distributed among the 35 health units.
“Our goal is to have a dose in somebody’s arm in the priority group by Sunday [Nov. 8].”
Wilkinson said production was changed to create a different version of the vaccine for pregnant women. His understanding was it would be available this week.
Then, the vaccine producer will speed production of the regular vaccine that comes with a built in booster, meaning less of it is required in an individual shot.
He said health units across the province “are having more success than challenges. Obviously, they’ve done remarkable work making sure that they’re getting the vaccine into people’s arms … that’s what really counts.”
He said the other issue is they are making certain they are dealing with high priority cases first.
“We seem to be having a much better rollout of the vaccine in rural Ontario overall.”
When asked about some clinics being caught up, or short line-ups at times, Wilkinson said they are encouraging all people to get the vaccine.
“H1N1 is a very severe flu. Fortunately, it is not a flu that leads to death in the vast majority of cases. But the people who do get sick, get very, very sick.”
“Unfortunately, people have passed away … many of them had an underlying medical condition.
“It is important for people to get vaccinated. The supply of vaccine from the federal government is not as strong as they had predicted. There’s been some holdups in the production of it.”
However, of the 2.5 million doses received to date, the provincial goal was to have all of them in people’s arms – not sitting on shelves. He said if an area has done a good job of getting the vaccine to its residents, it will not be penalized by additional supplies going to other areas.
New allocations will be sent every week from the federal government, Wilkinson said.
Comments were made by one media representative that in areas where there are not huge lineups, entire families were getting vaccinated, and the question was if that meant priority candidates might not be getting vaccinated in areas where there are shortages.
Wilkinson said such decisions are left up to the health units and the medical officers involved.
“In this case, the last thing you need, in my opinion, is a bunch of politicians deciding who gets the vaccine and who doesn’t. They are health care professionals, and we go along with their advice.”
