A good H1N1 story

For all intensive purposes the H1N1 story has been a total clusterfuck.

First we have a pandemic that has not presented itself as any more deadly than the normal flu we get every year. Sure it’s very contagious and does not kill only the usual suspects, killing a few people in their prime as well as the young and very old but statistically it just not that deadly. Second we have governments who appear to have acted slow, promoted panic and then cannot understand why huge line ups are taxing the system, Duh!! The Media is no better for flogging the story of a 13 year old death but ignoring the fact that the Southern hemisphere’s death rate for this flu was not extreme. Finally we have a health minister who blames the panic on the people rather than her own government’s failings. The Auditor General says the Government has totally failed in its duty to be prepared for such emergencies. We are so lucky this is not as deadly as the Spanish Flu because the system would collapse.

Whether we blame the drug company for being slow or the Cons for not placing the order soon enough, for poorly educating the populous and causing panic, or we blame the local Governments for a bad distribution plan it’s certainly a case of too little too late. I give my son’s kindergarten class as example considering they had ½ the kids out last week. I also know several people who got have the flu after getting the shot. Now I’m not claiming the shot made them sick, I know better, but the shots came too late and the system of 3-4 hour line ups to get the shot probably infected more people than it protected.

So what is the good news? I’ve got a great doctor.

This morning our GP called my wife and told her that my two kids (3 and 5) were in the high risk category, told her he had the vaccine, was willing to discuss the vaccine and asked if we wanted to come in for shots. WTF!!!! A doctor that goes out of his way to cold call patients to see if they want the shot, I definitely have an A list GP who never over books, almost never lets you wait past your appointment time and apparently actually cares.

Of course it was irrelevant since we all had the flu last week, but still My GP Doctor Feldman deserves a big ATTABOY!

And no, he’s not taking patients

.Recommend this Post