Will the health care worker stand up please? (From The Argus)

Will the health care worker stand up please?

5:43pm Wednesday 4th November 2009

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Another cracker of an audit sent to us today. The Government demands that we record every swine flu vaccine given to a health care worker. Regrettably the definition of a "health care worker" was not stated. I am not sure who to record when we eventually start vaccinating.

Doctors, nurses are easy... but how about ward cleaners, medical record clerks, secretaries, chiropodists, faith healers, aromatherapists, work experience students. (I know I no longer have to record medical students as they never see patients any more - unless there is a web camera link). As usual, the government's incessant demand for data is yet again going to create meaningless statistics unless they start defining exactly what they want. The concept must be to ensure that anyone at risk of passing infection from one patient to another should be vaccinated - so why don't they just settle on vaccinating the whole population as soon as possible?

I spent all weekend at the computer coding and classifying my patients into different risk groups for the swine flu vaccine. We get our first supplies (hopefully) this Friday, so Saturday will be our first chaotic clinic. Pregnant women and high risk young adults first - will be interesting to see how many "uninvited" attendees come along. We can only vaccinate in groups of 10, so I'm advising all patients to bring nine friends with them so as not to let any go to waste.

I am about to put a sign outside the surgery asking people to leave their coughs outside. The waiting room gets too noisy - more like a kennel than a doctors surgery with all the barking going on this week. Regrettably the more people coughing, the more influenza virus will be spread. The TV adverts about coughing into a handkerchief rather than into the air don't seem to be working.

If you want to help your doctor at the moment - respond to his calls about having vaccination. If you have a cold or cough, stay away from the surgery and take simple home remedies and don't expect him/her to be feeling full of the joys of spring at the moment - it's busy!