Dear Colleagues,
A quick roundup following the weekend on where we stand with H1N1 and our plans for this week:
Vaccination
We will continue to vaccinate staff and the stationary carts remain in place at all three sites – 5th Floor Staff lounge at PMH, de Gasperis Conservatory at TGH and in the main atrium at TWH – with roving carts at TGH and TWH. Remember - you'll need your badge to receive your vaccination.
Also - Occupational Health & Safety advises that we have now received some doses of vaccine without adjuvant. If you've been waiting for non-adjuvanted vaccine, please call the hotline at 340-FLUS to arrange an appointment to get your shot.
And finally on vaccination -- today, we will begin vaccinating inpatients and have also worked out a system for delivering vaccine to a number of outpatient clinics on all three sites. The shot will be given to patients whose health status is compromised, on the advice of the physicians responsible for patients in those clinics. We will continue to order vaccine in sufficient quantities to cover our inpatient group each week and until it is clear that most of our outpatients have received the shot from us, their family physician or a Toronto Public Health clinic.
Emergency Department
I am happy to report that our number of admitted patients in Emergency is relatively low today and that we were able to mobilize a number of people to assist in the Emergency Departments over the weekend so that people presenting with flu symptoms were seen quickly and sent home to bed to recover. My thanks to everyone who worked over the weekend to appropriately triage patients so that we could continue with our regularly scheduled care today. We will be watching our Emergency Department numbers carefully and making the necessary adjustments in the rest of the hospital if the volumes become too large.
Scheduled Care
The news here is good as well and again, thanks go to all the people who worked on the weekend to ensure that no scheduled surgeries or other procedures will be cancelled today. As I'm sure you recognize, it is very difficult for patients when a procedure is cancelled and we will do everything we can to avoid having to cancel scheduled care. This means continuing to work with the Emergency Departments, the inpatient units and organizations outside UHN to have patients flow through the system in a timely manner.
Thanks
Our sick calls remain high but we are approaching the point where immunity from the approximately 10,000 shots we've given will kick in and we hope that illness will drop back to normal levels. I know how hard all of you are working and I also know how much extra effort people are putting in to keep UHN functioning well and seeing our patients.
Thanks for all you do.
Bob
