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Alberta care crisis looms in face of H1N1 flu fears
By MICHAEL PLATT
Last Updated: 13th October 2009, 3:28am
Patients from outside Alberta could be using our province?s resources should a severe H1N1 flu outbreak materialize. (Reuters) Have they even asked the question? Because if they have, no one is saying.
When someone dies in a Calgary hospital as a result of H1N1, it's a concern for all Albertans.
When the person who dies is from a different province, brought here because her own province can't treat severe cases of the pandemic flu virus, it goes from concern to potential crisis.
One week ago, 25-year-old Cranbrook resident Susan Marsh died in a Calgary hospital after being transferred to Alberta with critical complications stemming from the H1N1 virus.
"You were one strong woman that many looked up to," wrote a friend on an online memorial site devoted to Marsh.
If the H1N1 flu is as bad as some have predicted, social sites such as Facebook will soon be overwhelmed with sorrow.
Whether Alberta's hospitals will be overwhelmed with out-of-province flu patients is a question no one could answer yesterday. Calls to the province and Alberta Health Services failed to elicit an answer. The province said it's up to Alberta Health Services to determine how out-of-province patients are handled, while Alberta Health Services thought the province dealt with that.
In any case, no one was available to speak on record. Thanksgiving weekend, you know. Hopefully someone will have an answer today, if there is one.
Dr. David Swann, leader of the Alberta Liberal Party, says he's pretty sure no one has actually asked the question.
"I don't think it's ever been part of the contingency plan. I think it is something that needs to be asked -- it's an important question," said Swann.
The answer matters because in a worse-case scenario -- hundreds of patients needing intensive care and ventilators -- there may not be enough critical care spaces available.
That means either Albertans can't be treated in their own hospitals because patients from B.C. and Saskatchewan got here first, or Alberta starts to deny care to outsiders who depend on us.
In Marsh's case, Calgary's best medicine couldn't save the young B.C. mom from the disease, which in its worst form attacks the lungs, requiring the use of a ventilator.
Alberta has some 500 ventilators, including 106 new machines purchased at a cost of $4 million just a month ago, to ensure Albertans would have adequate care if the number of severe H1N1 cases explodes, as expected.
B.C., it was revealed last week in a worrisome government report, has just 127 ventilators available to cope with the looming flu crisis because the rest are in use by other patients.
"The impact of even a mild presentation of the H1N1 virus on British Columbia may create a surge that could challenge the ability of critical care units to meet the demand and care for patients," reads the B.C. government report.
In short, B.C. may not have the critical-care resources needed to handle a flu crisis.
Health officials in that province say the H1N1 flu is spreading faster than expected, with 53 hospitalizations in B.C. and six confirmed H1N1 deaths in the province.
For a vast portion of B.C. -- including 150,000 people living in the Kooteney area and another 65,000 in the northeast -- Calgary and Edmonton are the closest centres with the resources to handle critical H1N1 cases.
Add 451,000 Okanagan residents and less than 40 ICU beds in area hospitals and it's clear there could be a major exodus of patients to emergency rooms outside of B.C.
Swann said Alberta could be in a moral bind if other Canadians need the province's health-care system to survive.
In his opinion, as a politician and a doctor, Alberta would have to treat all patients equally.
"We're a country, so we are going to shift resources to wherever the need is the greatest, and then we'll scramble to deal with the local issues, if it comes to the worst- case scenario," he said.
"The person who is in front of us struggling for breath is the one who gets the respirator, regardless of where in the country they came from. We can't discriminate."
http://www.calgarysun.com/news/columnists/michael_platt/2009/10/13/11382761-sun.html
By MICHAEL PLATT
Last Updated: 13th October 2009, 3:28am
Patients from outside Alberta could be using our province?s resources should a severe H1N1 flu outbreak materialize. (Reuters) Have they even asked the question? Because if they have, no one is saying.
When someone dies in a Calgary hospital as a result of H1N1, it's a concern for all Albertans.
When the person who dies is from a different province, brought here because her own province can't treat severe cases of the pandemic flu virus, it goes from concern to potential crisis.
One week ago, 25-year-old Cranbrook resident Susan Marsh died in a Calgary hospital after being transferred to Alberta with critical complications stemming from the H1N1 virus.
"You were one strong woman that many looked up to," wrote a friend on an online memorial site devoted to Marsh.
If the H1N1 flu is as bad as some have predicted, social sites such as Facebook will soon be overwhelmed with sorrow.
Whether Alberta's hospitals will be overwhelmed with out-of-province flu patients is a question no one could answer yesterday. Calls to the province and Alberta Health Services failed to elicit an answer. The province said it's up to Alberta Health Services to determine how out-of-province patients are handled, while Alberta Health Services thought the province dealt with that.
In any case, no one was available to speak on record. Thanksgiving weekend, you know. Hopefully someone will have an answer today, if there is one.
Dr. David Swann, leader of the Alberta Liberal Party, says he's pretty sure no one has actually asked the question.
"I don't think it's ever been part of the contingency plan. I think it is something that needs to be asked -- it's an important question," said Swann.
The answer matters because in a worse-case scenario -- hundreds of patients needing intensive care and ventilators -- there may not be enough critical care spaces available.
That means either Albertans can't be treated in their own hospitals because patients from B.C. and Saskatchewan got here first, or Alberta starts to deny care to outsiders who depend on us.
In Marsh's case, Calgary's best medicine couldn't save the young B.C. mom from the disease, which in its worst form attacks the lungs, requiring the use of a ventilator.
Alberta has some 500 ventilators, including 106 new machines purchased at a cost of $4 million just a month ago, to ensure Albertans would have adequate care if the number of severe H1N1 cases explodes, as expected.
B.C., it was revealed last week in a worrisome government report, has just 127 ventilators available to cope with the looming flu crisis because the rest are in use by other patients.
"The impact of even a mild presentation of the H1N1 virus on British Columbia may create a surge that could challenge the ability of critical care units to meet the demand and care for patients," reads the B.C. government report.
In short, B.C. may not have the critical-care resources needed to handle a flu crisis.
Health officials in that province say the H1N1 flu is spreading faster than expected, with 53 hospitalizations in B.C. and six confirmed H1N1 deaths in the province.
For a vast portion of B.C. -- including 150,000 people living in the Kooteney area and another 65,000 in the northeast -- Calgary and Edmonton are the closest centres with the resources to handle critical H1N1 cases.
Add 451,000 Okanagan residents and less than 40 ICU beds in area hospitals and it's clear there could be a major exodus of patients to emergency rooms outside of B.C.
Swann said Alberta could be in a moral bind if other Canadians need the province's health-care system to survive.
In his opinion, as a politician and a doctor, Alberta would have to treat all patients equally.
"We're a country, so we are going to shift resources to wherever the need is the greatest, and then we'll scramble to deal with the local issues, if it comes to the worst- case scenario," he said.
"The person who is in front of us struggling for breath is the one who gets the respirator, regardless of where in the country they came from. We can't discriminate."
http://www.calgarysun.com/news/columnists/michael_platt/2009/10/13/11382761-sun.html