Printed in the Montreal Gazette
Sat Nov 7 2009
Page: A4
Section: News
Source: Canwest News Services

Board members of Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital were offered H1N1 flu shots at a board of governors meeting Oct. 26, says the union representing 46,000 health-care workers in Ontario.

"The message this is sending is that the wealthy and influential should be treated first," said Pat Chastang, a spokesperson for the Service Employees International Union Local 1 Canada, "even if it means pregnant women and children must be made to wait."

The Ontario union urged all 65 of Mount Sinai's board members to resign.

"The most important quality of a board member are their ethics and their integrity. Clearly, jumping the queue was a mistake," Chastang said.

A statement from the hospital said the vaccinations were given during a clinic that was open to the general public at a time when no shortages had been announced.

The revelations come as the World Health Organization warned "intense and persistent" flu transmission continues to be reported in North America, "without evidence of a peak in activity."

This week, Canada's death toll reached more than 100 since the beginning of the pandemic in late April. As of Thursday, 115 deaths due to H1N1 had been reported to the federal government. The number of new hospitalizations were more than three times higher than the previous week, and 737 new flu outbreaks were reported - 710 of them in schools.

Virtually all flu cases diagnosed in Canada - 99.7 per cent - are H1N1.

The Public Health Agency of Canada had received reports by Oct. 31 of 2,440 hospitalized cases, including 443 admitted to intensive care and 230 that required mechanical ventilation.

In its weekly situation update yesterday, WHO said rates of influenza-like illness, the proportion of respiratory samples testing positive for flu, and outbreaks in schools "continues to increase sharply in Canada as activity spreads eastward."

Across Canada and the U.S., flu rates are higher than normal for this time of year.

Significantly more cases of H1N1 have been recorded in Mexico since September than were seen during the initial outbreak of H1N1 in the spring.

"Everything we are seeing is the 2009 H1N1 virus," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the U.S. National Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.