Health committee  Let me make it clear. I think any system, even within the tiering, allows public health officers within their community.... For instance, there was the priority tier for H1N1. I am absolutely sure that public health officers, hospitals, or whatever made determinations on who we a

Health committee  It's probably easiest to actually look at the guidance on H1N1, the vaccine sequencing. It's a little hard to find on the Internet now. It's been removed, but if you read the definition of “health care workers” it actually says: All health care workers (HCW) involved with pand

Health committee  I don't believe any of them did at a provincial level. I think some municipalities provided vaccines at that level.

Health committee  You may be right. I'm not sure.

Health committee  It's actually the pandemic plan that recognizes firefighters as part of the emergency medical provision. From the plan, they take the sequencing guideline and in that translation to the guideline for H1N1, firefighters were somehow separated from other emergency medical responder

Health committee  From the association's point of view, we don't have access to those statistics. Whether municipalities kept them, specific to that—they likely had some sort of feedback. But there's no question that firefighters responded to patients with H1N1. It would be virtually impossible th

Health committee  Further to the same question, there are a number of municipalities in Canada where the paramedic service is administered through the fire department: Winnipeg, Lethbridge, and Strathcona County in Alberta. Those are the examples that spring to mind. An interesting situation hap

Health committee  I think it would make it so much easier for us if, for instance, some provincial jurisdiction stated that they were not going to provide firefighters with the vaccine even though the guideline suggested they should. We would be looking for some sort of rationale to back that up.

Health committee  If there is a reason why the firefighters aren't in the same situation, then obviously the jurisdiction would be able to make that decision and justify it.

Health committee  The percentages can differ, and obviously in a case such as Barrie, which has expanded into a bedroom community of Toronto, and there are still some rural areas serviced, it's probably a little bit higher. In the city of Toronto, where I was a firefighter for 28 years, on averag

Health committee  Very briefly, regardless of what goes on...the provinces will always have the flexibility to view this as a guideline. The federal guideline was confusing, because we fit the definition for emergency health responders, yet we were pulled out of it by specifying firefighters separ

Health committee  I think it's clear that it is a guideline. I don't think we dispute or are suggesting the government should go beyond issuing a guideline. We're suggesting that the plan and subsequent guidelines that are released have to be very clear and clearly understood. Again, I think in a

Health committee  There has been no concerted effort by us to deal with it at a provincial level because quite frankly we see the confusion originating at this level. If the guidelines and the plan were clear on that, I think the individual issues that may arise at the provincial and municipal lev

Health committee  Considering the firefighters, and we represent 22,000 across Canada, I would say it would be in the vicinity of 90% who did not receive the vaccine. It was an anomaly that we're the ones who did receive the vaccine in that first tier. It was due to the confusion and the miscommun

Health committee  —or not to differentiate them. I understand the concerns about tying the hands in the actual plan, but I think that any time there's an inclusion and discussion of emergency medical providers, firefighters should be part of that definition.