Provincial warnings to the public about closures of H1N1 vaccination clinics and delays in vaccine delivery contradict the federal government's claim about a sea of vaccine on its way to a worried Canadian public.

On the day Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) reiterated to the House of Commons last week that six million vaccine doses had already been distributed and two million more would be arriving this week, the province of New Brunswick listed more than 50 clinics it was postponing because of vaccine supply problems.

In Newfoundland, Health Minister Jerome Kennedy cited a supply shortage as he announced a new limited system of priority groups for the vaccination, rather than expanding it to a total of about 100,000 citizens who could be listed as a priority.

"We simply don't have enough vaccine to offer to all of these individuals at this time," Mr. Kennedy said on Wednesday. Saskatchewan also posted vaccine clinic schedules up to last Friday that cited the need to "manage the supply of vaccine." In Ontario the government posted a list influenza assessment and referral centres to reduce pressure on hospital emergency rooms and doctors' offices.

Nova Scotia began changing its immunization strategy at the beginning of the week "because of national vaccine supply issues" as the province's chief public health officer, Dr. Robert Strang, called on residents to show "patience, calm and understanding" as the province began to "re-assess its vaccine supply on an ongoing basis."

The situation appeared to contradict Prime Minister Harper's claim that the provinces shouldered the blame for vaccination delivery problems continuing across the country.

It also prompted NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North, Man.) to predict that the flood of vaccines the Prime minister was forecasting for the coming weeks could lead to the "worst-case scenario" without federal financial aid to provincial health-delivery systems.

Ms. Wasylycia-Leis and Liberal MP David McGuinty (Ottawa South, Ont) told The Hill Times the Conservatives should cancel $100-million worth of advertising the government has placed through federal departments to showcase federal job-stimulus projects and transfer the money to the provinces for H1N1 vaccinations, clinics and acute-care delivery.

"Cancel the contracts with the major broadcasters, cancel the contracts with the major newspaper chains, the magazine chains, local papers, radio chains, take the money and allocate it to the provinces on a per-capita basis, on a clinic basis, on a vaccinated Canadian basis, any basis you want to go on, do it," said Mr. McGuinty.

"One hundred million dollars is what we are now up to in terms of overall expenditures [on the advertising], but we can't nail the number down," he said. "However, the government refuses to deny that it is $100-million."

Supplementary estimates the government tabled in Parliament on Nov. 5 revealed that the 50.4 million doses of H1N1 vaccine the government has already ordered from pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline will cost a minimum of $403.2-million.

Ms. Wasylyica-Leis agreed the advertising money now directed at the stimulus projects are thinly-disguised promotions for the governing party and said the cash could be diverted to provincial vaccination clinics. "Anything is possible," she said.

The NDP health critic said information she received from the Manitoba and Nova Scotia NDP governments also contradicted Prime Minister Harper's claims about the flow of vaccine doses to the provinces. She predicted hospitals across the country could be near the breaking point should the pandemic peak later this month as some MPs fear.

"We are just beginning to see the signs of an acute care health system that is over-extended," Ms. Wasylycia-Leis said. "Going into this critical period, we are at full capacity with cases becoming more serious and the hospitals filling up; the acute care system is already way over-extended."

"We've always asked them from day one to be involved in supporting provincial healthcare systems to improve capacity at the acute-care end, to get more ventilator beds and to ensure that they've got the staff and the resources they need to deal with the worst-case scenario."

Asked what a worst-case scenario would be, Ms. Wasylycia-Leis replied: "What that means is if this turns out to be a much more serious pandemic than is currently the case, we will not be equipped to help people when they need health care."

Conservative MP Gerald Keddy (South Shore-St. Margaret's, N.S.), however, accused the opposition parties of frightening the public and creating panic by overstating the degree of threat and the problems that vaccination clinics were experiencing.

"What we really need here is for politicians to take responsibility, on every side of the House," he said.

"We need assistance from the opposition; we don't need to torque this any higher, ratchet it any higher than it is. We need to lay out to people that this is a flu like other flus that have been here. So far it hasn't mutated into anything worse than that. We need to make sure people remain calm, we need to make sure they get their vaccines and allow the public health officials and the experts on this to roll this vaccine out as soon as they can."

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The Hill Times