Media Fanning The H1N1 Flames
November 6th, 2009
As you may have heard in the news, well actually I’m quite certain you’ve read about this because on the evening news there are no less than 8-10 different stories related to H1N1. If you haven’t I’ll provide a brief coles notes version.
Last Friday the Calgary Flames organization were provided with their own private H1N1 immunization clinic. The clinic was open to all staff, players and their families including those from the farm team in Abbotsford, BC. A senior Alberta Health Services (AHS) staffer that approved the clinic was later fired for the serious ‘misjudgement’.
While the news first broke out on Tuesday that a private clinic was setup for the Calgary Flames, the actual clinic was put on before the weekend on Friday. This is important to note as the public outrage seems a bit overboard in my opinion. AHS announced on the weekend that the province would be changing the H1N1 immunization plans due to stronger than anticipated demand. Prior to this, all H1N1 clinics were open to the general public. Now the new plan is to only allow those that are deemed high-risk to receive the shots.
The planning for the private clinic no doubt took place well before the vaccine shortage was announced. So while I agree that the private clinic for the Calgary Flames should not have been put on, I believe the situation is being blown out of proportion by the media. An AHS staffer is fired over this private clinic in which 50-60 shots were given out (I’m assuming here that not everyone that was eligible to get the shots at the private clinic actually took advantage)? How many of you reading this know of people that are not in the high-risk group that went out and got shots? Are you chastising these people for jumping in front of those that need the shots?
“Hockey players are not at high risk for swine flu,” NDP Leader Brian Mason said in question period. “Some pregnant women and young children now face a greater risk of very serious disease or even death because millionaire hockey players got a vaccine they did not urgently need.”
What about Dr. Andre Corriveau? He is Alberta chief medical officer of health who urged all Albertans to get vaccinated. His decision to open clinics to all Albertans instead of just high-risk Albertans was a critical mistake but he still gets to keep his job. Wait, theres more. Dr. Corriveau himself who does not work face to face with patients and thus is not considered high-risk received the H1N1 vaccine.
Perhaps his boss, Ron Liepert the Health Minister should be fired too? The whole H1N1 vaccination debacle falls on him. Ultimately, some big mistakes were made from the get go and now we’re facing a vaccine shortage here in Alberta. Who gets fired? Some middle manager that approved a private clinic for the Calgary Flames? If there was no uproar would he still have his job?
To argue a different point, was it really a bad idea to vaccinate the Calgary Flames? We have a semi-large organization travelling to dozens of cities in a short period of time competing face to face with other players who are also travelling all over Canada and the United States. One cannot deny that this is an excellent transmission opportunity for the H1N1 virus. Immunizing those that are travelling frequently can only reduce the chance of the virus being brought in from another city. Is that not the whole point of this mass vaccination?
I hear there are people that are unloading their season tickets because of this incident. To that I say great!, more tickets for the rest of us.
Photo Credit: Malcolm Mayes, edmontonjournal.com
Tags:calgary flames, h1n1, nhl
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I did not read the thread, but I comepletely disagree with the firing of the staff member. I definitely think this person was a scape goat. I also did not pick up on the fact that the plans to vaccinate the flames were most likely organized long before the shortage was even forseeable.
Bang on.
So the Flames got vaccinated, big deal. The only point of contention is the whole “private clinic” part. I for one think it was fine. There were enough people waiting to get the shot, in one place. Why not send one or two staffers over for an hour or two and administer the shot? If the flames had gone to a public clinic, could you imagine the calamity that would ensue? People fighting each other trying to get autographs, not to mention that the players like to keep some privacy in their lives, and with the constant badgering the fans would give them over the course of 6 hours while waiting in line, I for one am happy they were able to get this done.
there is no reason the manufacturer would stop production when they’re making billions of dollars every couple hours. so for the players to get the vaccine before everyone else. big effin deal. there will be more in the near future especially since the federal government purchased enough vaccine so that EVERYONE in the country would have 3. i don’ even think that alberta government was to blame for all of this. I had no idea that so many people had nothing better to do thent stand in line for 7 hours on the very first day. everyone needs to calm down and wait, if anything it’ll only make things better in the odd chance they find a flaw in the original vaccine.
I really think that they are making a bigger deal of this for really no reason, yes its a bad disease but I think that there is a lot more behind this, I had a friend come up with a theory that this was made up so that the pharmaceutical companies could sell their products during the world financial crises, we all thought he was a little crazy.