By Katie Strachan
The Oshawa Express

While flu season is something that has health care providers and the Ministry of Health scrambling to prepare for, this year’s flu season is going to be different. With the onset of H1N1 flu in early 2009, the Durham Region Health Department is preparing should it become a pandemic across Durham. The World Health Organization has maintained the pandemic alert at Phase 6, the highest level. If necessary, and approved by the region’s Finance and Administration Committee, the health department is prepared to set up an assessment centre.
The assessment centre would screen people, who exhibit symptoms of influenza, including H1N1, and either direct them to other health professionals or administer antiviral medicine. This assessment centre would have to be deemed necessary by Chief Medical Officer Dr. Robert Kyle who says he can’t predict if one will be needed at this time.“It’s a bit premature to comment on the circumstances of setting up an assessment centre,” he says.

But if it is deemed necessary, he says it will likely be one centre on-site with a hospital or clinic.“There needs to be enough flu activity when emergency rooms and health care practitioners couldn’t handle the cases,” he explains. If the decision to open a centre is
made, the health department would need people to staff it, says Dr. Kyle. Employees from other regional departments or from other external organizations like hospitals or community agencies would classify as community partners. If there is not enough support, a centre will not be opened.“We’re just not there yet with respect to commitments from community partners,” he explains. The health department has had meetings with community partners to establish relationships and commitments should an assessment centre be required, says Dr Kyle.“We will make that call when we have enough evidence from our community partners that the system is getting overwhelmed,” says the chief medical officer.

The vaccine, which was created for H1N1, is known as p H1N1. It’s expected to be ready by November, states a region report. In past years, the health department has given about 12,000 doses of the typical seasonal influenza vaccine per year. The health department is expecting that five per cent of the region’s population will request a seasonal influenza vaccine and that 10 per cent will request the H1N1 vaccine. This will require them to set up four or five temporary clinics for three to five months to deal with the increased volumes of people. But the temporary clinics would come with a high price tag. If five centres were to be set-up from
October 2009 to February 2010 and 10 per cent of Durham’s population were vaccinated
it would cost more than $548,000. But according to Dr. Kyle, the costs are expected to be reimbursed by the Ministry of Health.