November 20, 2009 - 1:00am

The flu shot screw-up

Canada is barely a few weeks into the biggest mass immunization campaign in the nation’s history, and by now everyone has heard—or worse, lived—a u shot horror story. “It’s been chaotic,” admits Dr. David Scheifele, director of the Vaccine Evaluation Centre in Vancouver, which is associated with the B.C. Children’s Hospital. His own experience is no exception. Recently, Scheifele ordered nurses at his hospital to administer the pandemic H1N1 vaccine to the highest priority health care workers, those in the emergency room, intensive care unit, and labour and delivery area. He knew there was a limited supply of shots, so nurses visited the targeted groups with a mobile cart. “We thought that was really smart. No advertising. This was a sensible way to interact with the people who needed the vaccines.”

But pandemonium erupted. “Legions of people were basically crashing the party,” he recalls, including non-priority clerical and medical staff. There was such a “clamour” and so many “irate people incensed that they were being turned away” that the nurses had to return the next day with a security guard. “It is preposterous, the notion that nurses delivering a vaccine would be mobbed and fear for their safety,” he says. “Who could ever have imagined a scenario like that?”