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Does secrecy about flu cases really protect the public?
Susan Thompson
for Smoky River Express
The World Health Organization says we’re currently in the midst of a global flu pandemic.
Swine flu, or more accurately H1N1, is essentially the same flu that some say killed more people than the bubonic plague when it hit hard back in 1918 to 1920. It was called the Spanish flu then, but the Spanish flu was actually the H1N1 virus too.
The Spanish flu appeared in spring, caused a few illnesses and deaths, disappeared over the summer and then came back with a vengeance during the fall and winter flu season.
Health officials are still worried the new H1N1 flu will do the same.
In fact, it’s already hard to overstate the seriousness of this flu. In 15 per cent of cases it infects people with a severe form that goes straight to the lungs, meaning patients must be treated in hospital using ventilators.
There have also been some confirmed cases now, most recently in Alberta, of a drug-resistant form of the flu that doesn’t respond to anti-virals like Tamiflu.
And of course there have been a number of people getting severely ill and even dying. The most-covered case in Alberta recently was the death of the father of a participant at the WorldSkills games in Calgary.
We can all hope the vaccine being developed is effective and is delivered in time to save us from the worst effects of a pandemic.
What worries me is this.
If the flu pandemic is getting really bad in our communities, how will we know?
You might assume Alberta Health Services (AHS) will tell us, but the provincial superboard is already incredibly tight-lipped. AHS will only report new cases by naming major centres (Calgary and Edmonton) or the region (in our case, northern Alberta). Even saying the Peace Country or the Smoky River region is too specific, let alone naming a specific town.
Reporters like myself can only watch the numbers tick up in general, and report by broad region.
Any further specifics need to be confirmed by AHS itself, something the board is reluctant to do. We can simply hope AHS will hold a press conference and the public will be informed if there is a significant death .
Alberta Health Services apparently believes this will prevent panic.
There is, of course, also the issue of doctor-patient confidentiality. Patients have a right to confidentiality.
Fair enough.
But is the public interest really being served by keeping things this general?
Remember, if no one actually dies we’ll probably never know if there was someone – or what worries me more, several people – in our particular community who have fallen severely ill.
Does it really matter if the person doesn’t die if they end up in intensive care for weeks? Isn’t that life-threatening enough to warrant telling people?
As a member of the media, I understand it’s important to back up reports with facts. But I also believe the media is there to serve the public interest. At some point, isn’t it the public’s right to know if there is an outbreak of a severe disease in their particular community so they can take extra precautions? It’s all well and good to be told to keep washing our hands and staying home if we get sick, but won’t people take that a little more seriously if we know hey, a bunch of people in Falher, or even just the Peace Region, are in ICU?
Even if this hasn’t happened yet, what if it does in the future? What then?
As a parent, it bothers me that I might not know, or that I might only know if I hear it through the local gossip grapevine.
As a member of the media, I feel a little uncomfortable knowing I can only report what Alberta Health Services allows me to report. It feels a little too close to censorship.
That’s especially true since the new superboard is notoriously controlling in general. Health care staff in our province now face possibly losing their jobs if they speak to media, meaning all information on health must be obtained through the Alberta Health Services bureaucracy. By and large, that bureaucracy doesn’t say much.
Interestingly enough, that same original 1918 flu received the nickname “Spanish flu” because Spain had no special censorship on reporting about the disease in its own news media. It was WWI and Spain was neutral, meaning war-time censorship didn’t apply. As a result, the most reliable news on the disease came from Spain.
Unfortunately, that also gave the false impression that Spain was the most, or only, affected country in the world.
Maybe, then, the powers that be are worried Alberta will become some sort of pariah. Or maybe what they mean when they say “panic” is at least partly a decrease in business.
I’m not saying I want to point fingers at individuals who are unfortunate enough to become ill.
It’s just that personally, if there’s a major flu outbreak in my backyard, I’d rather know. I’d feel better able to protect my family if I did.
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