Inmates gets swine shots, guards do not
By Joe Warmington, Sun Media
Last Updated: 30th October 2009, 7:08am
TORONTO — Inmates at Ontario jails and correctional centres will be vaccinated for the swine flu Monday while the guards protecting them have been told their clinics have been cancelled, the Sun has learned.
“This puts us at risk,” says Matthew Duffy, an officer at the Toronto West jail who is a shop steward for OPSEU Local 517 and a “wellness” representative.
“They have told us they are holding a clinic for the inmates Monday, Nov. 1 but not one for us? It’s ridiculous,” he said yesterday.
The decision to take care of the health concerns of the inmates and not the officers is “insulting”, Duffy said.
To suggest the clinics were cancelled because “there was poor turnout” in other years is ludicrous, he said.
“I mean this year there is a pandemic isn’t there?” Duffy said. “It’s a little different.”
And to add insult to injury, he said, the guards will be part of the security of the clinic.
“They want us to help put the clinic on and we are not getting the vaccine?” said Duffy, a 23-year veteran. “We have pregnant women on the job. It’s not right.”
The correctional services ministry could not be reached for comment last night.
A memo sent to staff said the decision to not give flu shots to staff was based on poor turnout in other years.
“While inmates will be vaccinated at all institutions, the decision was made to not hold staff vaccination clinics at institutions this year due to the small uptake by staff in previous years,” says the memorandum from Loretta Eley, of the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services.
Also, a memo from Nancy Ogden, a nurse adviser in the ministry states, “over the last three years of collecting data on our flu clinics it was identified that in the majority of facilities that conducted flu clinics the employee turnout was poor and some cited this as ‘disappointing’, not cost effective, etc.”
In B.C.’s crowded jails high-risk inmates are getting the shots to better protect the public when they are released, officials said.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SQUALO
A sign of things to come...two tiered medical service...for those who can afford it. The Minister of Health was on CTV news @ 6PM, she was asked about that, and she kept dodging the question; the gov't damn well knows that's going on, because the clinic has to get authority from the gov't to charge the fee...they call it a membership fee, because the vaccine is free 
I'm in law enforcement, and even the Police, Fire, and EMS, in-house clinics have been pushed back another week. Now with a so-called shortage of vaccine, I bet ours will get pushed back even more, I'll find out on Monday. Toronto Fire is already complaining, because they're in the high risk category.
At this point, I'm still trying to figure out how we survived SARS...and the gov't says that they learned a lot from that...Yeah how to be more disorganized than SARS.
Hang in there everyone, things should level off in a couple of weeks; in the mean time remember the pre-cautions: CONTINUOUS HAND WASHING & SOCIAL DISTANCING ARE THE KEY ELEMENTS. |