Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.canada.com/globaltv/national/health/story.html?id=6e5deef9-120f-46b8-a049-77670c5c9a64
Ont. better prepared for outbreak after SARS: Smitherman
Jordana Huber, Canwest News Service
TORONTO ? Ontario is "substantially" in a better place to deal with an infectious disease outbreak, Minister of Health George Smitherman said five years after SARS claimed the lives of 44 in the Toronto area.
But Smitherman acknowledged Tuesday there was "no doubt" more work was needed as some health officials warned the province still lacks adequate systems for tracking and reporting infectious diseases.
The health minister said the appointment of Dr. Vivek Goel to lead Ontario?s new agency for health protection and promotion marked an important milestone in the overhaul of emergency health planning in the province.
The arms-length public health agency was created in the aftermath of SARS, and will be named after Sheela Basrur, Toronto?s medical officer of health at the time of the outbreak in 2003 ? and the public face on television each night giving updates.
Dr. David Walker, board chair of the new agency said while Ontario is much closer to where it should have been five years ago there still remained a ?critical need? for public health renewal warning the next crisis probably won?t be a ?SARS-like event.?
?We have bugs in hospitals, we have flu pandemics around the corner,? Walker said. We?ve had tainted water and meat. We have bio terrorism, natural disasters quite apart from the normal background epidemics of obesity and smoking.?
Progressive Conservative health critic Elizabeth Witmer said the Liberal government still has not done enough to address concerns raised by Ontario?s auditor general about the province?s ability to manage a public health crisis.
In his annual report, Jim McCarter said Ontario was not prepared to respond to an outbreak of an infectious disease due to a lack of surge capacity in hospitals, staffing vacancies in local public health units and insufficient space to quarantine a significant number of patients.
Still, Smitherman said despite concerns, the province?s ability to respond to a crisis has been ?tremendously enhanced.?
?I have no doubt there is more work to do, I agree with any such assessment,? Smitherman said. ?But we are in a substantially better spot and today is evidence of even further movement forward.?
At the time of the SARS outbreak the province had only one microbiologist, now there are more than 10, he added.
Smitherman said he has worked closely with nurses to enhance protections for front-line workers and the province is in the process of stockpiling 55 million N95 masks that offer more protection than surgical masks.
Dr. Donald Low, chief of microbiology at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto, said there continues to be a need for more resources nationally in order to facilitate the sharing of information between provinces that don?t have the same resources to deal with an infectious disease outbreak.
?There is a lot of pandemic fatigue,? said Low. ?There was a lot of attention paid to the threat of a pandemic a few years back and it never came into being. So the concern is some might say well, it didn?t emerge into anything and maybe this is less of a reason to be putting our attention and resources into public health.?
Canwest News Service
?Canwest News Service 2008
Ont. better prepared for outbreak after SARS: Smitherman
Jordana Huber, Canwest News Service
TORONTO ? Ontario is "substantially" in a better place to deal with an infectious disease outbreak, Minister of Health George Smitherman said five years after SARS claimed the lives of 44 in the Toronto area.
But Smitherman acknowledged Tuesday there was "no doubt" more work was needed as some health officials warned the province still lacks adequate systems for tracking and reporting infectious diseases.
The health minister said the appointment of Dr. Vivek Goel to lead Ontario?s new agency for health protection and promotion marked an important milestone in the overhaul of emergency health planning in the province.
The arms-length public health agency was created in the aftermath of SARS, and will be named after Sheela Basrur, Toronto?s medical officer of health at the time of the outbreak in 2003 ? and the public face on television each night giving updates.
Dr. David Walker, board chair of the new agency said while Ontario is much closer to where it should have been five years ago there still remained a ?critical need? for public health renewal warning the next crisis probably won?t be a ?SARS-like event.?
?We have bugs in hospitals, we have flu pandemics around the corner,? Walker said. We?ve had tainted water and meat. We have bio terrorism, natural disasters quite apart from the normal background epidemics of obesity and smoking.?
Progressive Conservative health critic Elizabeth Witmer said the Liberal government still has not done enough to address concerns raised by Ontario?s auditor general about the province?s ability to manage a public health crisis.
In his annual report, Jim McCarter said Ontario was not prepared to respond to an outbreak of an infectious disease due to a lack of surge capacity in hospitals, staffing vacancies in local public health units and insufficient space to quarantine a significant number of patients.
Still, Smitherman said despite concerns, the province?s ability to respond to a crisis has been ?tremendously enhanced.?
?I have no doubt there is more work to do, I agree with any such assessment,? Smitherman said. ?But we are in a substantially better spot and today is evidence of even further movement forward.?
At the time of the SARS outbreak the province had only one microbiologist, now there are more than 10, he added.
Smitherman said he has worked closely with nurses to enhance protections for front-line workers and the province is in the process of stockpiling 55 million N95 masks that offer more protection than surgical masks.
Dr. Donald Low, chief of microbiology at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto, said there continues to be a need for more resources nationally in order to facilitate the sharing of information between provinces that don?t have the same resources to deal with an infectious disease outbreak.
?There is a lot of pandemic fatigue,? said Low. ?There was a lot of attention paid to the threat of a pandemic a few years back and it never came into being. So the concern is some might say well, it didn?t emerge into anything and maybe this is less of a reason to be putting our attention and resources into public health.?
Canwest News Service
?Canwest News Service 2008