Visitors or employees at hospitals and care homes must be vaccinated against the flu by Monday or wear a mask.
Island Health has run public flu clinics since late October. Some doctors’ offices and pharmacies have also provided the vaccinations.
The policy that requires all visitors to be vaccinated was implemented last year “to help protect patients and seniors who are most at risk of complications from the flu,” the B.C. Health Ministry said.
Enforcement of the policy relies on the honour system. Masks are provided at the care facilities and anyone planning a visit is eligible for a free flu shot.
“Anyone who enters a hospital, long-term care facility or any other health-care facility will be expected to wear a mask if they haven’t been vaccinated against influenza,” a Health Ministry news release said Thursday.
The provincial government policy requires that health-care workers — including doctors and volunteers — be immunized during the flu season, typically December through March.
In October 2013, arbitrator Robert Diebolt dismissed a grievance from the Health Sciences Association of B.C., which represents 16,000 health-care workers, against the policy introduced the year before by B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall.
By that time, the B.C. Nurses’ Union complaints about the policy had subsided. After that ruling, health-care unions mostly dropped the issue.
Eighty per cent of health employees across B.C. last year received the flu shot, according to the province. Compliance among Island Health staff was 71 per cent, up 16 percentage points from the previous year.
The flu vaccine is highly recommended for the very young (six months to less than five years old), people 65 and older and those whose immune systems are compromised for reasons ranging from chronic illness to obesity.
The vaccine is free to the recommended age groups, including their caregivers and household contacts, pregnant women, visitors to hospitals and care homes, owners and operators of poultry farms, and staff and inmates in correctional institutions.
FluMist, a nasal spray flu vaccine, is also available for children. Those nine and younger who have never had the influenza vaccine are required to get two doses in either form, one month apart, for the first year.
Each year, 3,500 Canadians die from influenza or its complications, the Health Ministry said.
[email protected]
