File this under the heading: What were they thinking? Fraser Health has cancelled its annual clinics at seniors' centres this year to focus resources on children under five and on people who use nasal-spray flu vaccines - two groups that can't be served by pharmacies or local doctors. The health authority expects seniors to line up at commercial pharmacies or go to local doctors to get their shots.
There can really be only one overriding reason for this decision - and it isn't about helping seniors during the flu season. It's, of course, about saving money - and, as a secondary side benefit, giving some businesses a bit of trade.
Seniors' associations have protested the change, arguing that it makes it more difficult in many cases for seniors to get their flu shots. If you've ever been in a medical clinic waiting to get a flu shot, you know the problem. Not only are the waits interminable, but the waiting rooms are filled with, of course, infectious folks.
Now, by midweek the NDP Opposition was lambasting Health Minister Terry Lake about the change, and Lake almost looked like he was going to bring the clinics back - until this paper sought clarification. Now Lake has said that Fraser Health would only reconsider co-ordinating flu clinics at centres that did not have access to nearby pharmacy-run clinics.
As of Wednesday, Fraser Health hadn't reinstated any of the cancelled seniors clinics. That political sidestepping by Lake incited MLA Kathy Corrigan to say that he used "weasel words." We agree.
But, politics aside, that leaves seniors pretty much to their own devices. Will they find a pharmacy and wait in line? Perhaps. But perhaps not.
This is shortsighted, to say the least. If seniors are deterred from getting flu shots, they are more likely to get the flu. Seniors who get the flu are more vulnerable to complications and may end up in the hospital. If they end up in the hospital, it makes the cost of a flu shot seem minuscule.
