One month after getting a letter from concerned Burnaby seniors, Fraser Health will resume cancelled flu clinics at local senior centres next week.
“Certainly we take what happened in those changes in the flu clinic services this year as a lesson for us to ensure that we continue to meet the demands as well as requests from our community members, including seniors,” Fraser Health interim chief medical health officer Dr. Victoria Lee told the NOW.
The health authority had cancelled seniors flu clinic across the region this season to focus more resources on children under five years old and on people who use nasal-spray flu vaccines – two groups that can’t be served by pharmacies.
But the move sparked a backlash from seniors, who argued they needed the clinics too because many seniors don’t have family doctors, and pharmacies don’t provide a private, age-friendly space for the shots.
The cuts also caught the attention of the NDP, who made them an issue in the provincial Legislature.
Fraser Health has since reviewed its decision and reinstated clinics at all four Burnaby seniors centres.
Some seniors advocates are worried about the late timing.
“The concern now is that, because they’re setting them up so late, a lot of seniors may already have gotten their shot, and then I’m afraid that they’ll just use it as an excuse to say, ‘See, we only got 25 people, and we’re not going to have [the clinics] any more.’ I’d hate to see that happen,” said Brenda Felker, a member of the local advocacy group Voices of Burnaby Seniors (VOBS).
But Lee said Fraser Health will provide the clinics again next year in centres where the health authority saw “a lot of uptake as well as interest and demand.”
For the rest of the centres, the health authority will have “a different mechanism,” according to Lee.
While the decision to cut the seniors clinics this year was based on community and regional data, she said planning for next year’s vaccination program will be more comprehensive.
“In terms of upcoming years, we’ll make sure that we take into consideration individual centres’ needs as well as the comments and also the needs expressed from our seniors,” Lee said.
Asked whether Fraser Health could have done a better job consulting seniors before cutting the clinics this year, she said: “I think there’s always room to improve in every service that we deliver.”
Fraser Health seniors flu clinics are scheduled from 9 a.m. to noon at Edmonds on Dec. 8, Confederation Park on Dec. 11 and Cameron Dec. 15. Bonsor will host a clinic Jan. 15 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
