Bad things happen “There are about 2,400 miscarriages a day in the U.S. You’ll see things that would have happened anyway. But the vaccine doesn’t cause miscarriages. It also doesn’t cause auto accidents, but they happen.” Jay Butler of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says some people will have heart attacks, strokes or miscarriages after getting the swine-flu vaccination, but they shouldn’t blame the shotFRANCOIS LENOIR
You might have thought Toronto's experience with SARS would have made health-care workers in the city's hospitals more likely than their provincial counterparts to get a flu shot. But a new report suggests you would have been wrong.
The report, from Toronto Public Health, shows that for the past three years, flu shot uptake rates among staff of Toronto's hospitals and long-term care facilities have been lower than the provincial median rates.
Hospitals are required to provide the figures annually to Toronto Public Health. Last year Chief Medical Officer Dr. David McKeown warned the institutions that from this year onward, he would be making the figures public.
"I think transparency can play an important role in drawing attention to the issue and emphasizing the importance of immunization for health-care workers," said Dr. McKeown, who explained he thinks flu immunization rates should be included among the hospital-specific patient safety indicators the province is now collecting and reporting - things like rates of C. difficile and drug-resistant Staph.
"I think one of the things that would be a good idea is if patients and family members asked the institution how they're doing in influenza immunization. Ask your health professional."
The median rate among acute care hospitals in the city was 42 per cent, and 55 per cent among the staff of complex continuing care hospitals. The rates among long-term care facilities - home to those in society at greatest risk from flu - were generally higher, though at the low end of the scale only 19 per cent of the staff in one such facility got a flu shot last year.
The report doesn't list separate provincial rates for acute care and complex continuing care hospitals, but said the median rate provincially for staff immunization against flu in long-term care was 77 per cent last year.
Dr. McKeown said the numbers - on Toronto Public Health's website, with tables listing individual institutions - might be an eye-opener for some.
"People who work in this field recognize that it's a challenge to get health-care workers to be immunized against influenza. But I think most patients and families would be surprised by how few health-care workers are immunized," he said.
"There are a number of institutions in which only one in four to one in five of the staff are reported to have been immunized. Those numbers are very low."
Some of the hospitals involved in the city's SARS outbreak were not as high up the list as one might have expected. For instance, Scarborough Grace Hospital - the first hospital hit and the epicentre of the first wave of the outbreak - had a median flu immunization rate of only 24 per cent.
On the other hand, the three hospitals of the University Health Network reported a rate of 63 per cent, the highest among Toronto's acute-care hospitals.
The Ontario Ministry of Health recommends that institutions strive for a flu immunization rate of 70 per cent. But Dr. McKeown said that should be a floor, not a ceiling.
And he's hopeful the emphasis the H1N1 virus is placing on influenza means next year's report will be more impressive.
"I'm hoping that the amount of attention that's being paid to influenza this year will help shine a light on this particular aspect of our efforts to protect people against influenza," Dr. McKeown said.
"We're expecting to have a busy flu season. And we need those health-care workers on the job and not contributing to the problem."