Opinion: The high cost of Alberta's flu vaccination policy

Every day, as a physician in the intensive care unit (ICU), I watch families break as loved ones die, wishing for more time. When patients arrive unable to breathe because of influenza pneumonia, we must have difficult conversations about life support, breathing tubes, chest tubes, and ventilators.

Last year, we had these discussions 313 times in Alberta ICUs. We also had to tell families 237 times that a loved one was going to die — or had died — from the flu. This year, I fear families will face even more of these devastating moments. It is the hardest part of my job.

With limited access to flu vaccines due to new Government of Alberta policies, we are heading into a costly winter. Long waits on the 811 Health Link line, family doctors not receiving vaccines, and restrictions on vaccination for children under five all create barriers to our most important defence against severe influenza — vaccination.

From Alberta’s Respiratory Virus Dashboard, flu vaccinations are down 10 per cent from this time last year. COVID-19 vaccinations are only half of last year’s rate. Flu season is just beginning, yet as of Nov. 17, cases have risen nearly six-fold, deaths have more than doubled, ICU admissions have doubled, and hospitalizations have increased by 239 per cent.

So far, the rise in influenza hospitalizations has cost an estimated additional $1.5 million in health-care spending, not including delayed surgeries or overcrowding. Flu cases amongst working-age people have already cost about 476 workdays — an estimated $119,000 in lost productivity (Stats Canada average Alberta wage). We have also lost 105 potential years of life to influenza this year, a indicator of premature death.

Influenza vaccination rates have been falling since 2020, and this year Alberta has its lowest rate in five years. The financial burden is visible, but the value of a life is not. Researchers continue to try to put a price on life, but really, what is the price of your life? It is indeed the only thing that is priceless. The Government of Alberta isn’t just costing taxpayers more; it is costing many of us the thing that we value most.

We are at risk of the flu crippling an already very wounded health-care system, but there is still time for a change to the Alberta government’s health policy. A true influenza-vaccine campaign can be run, family physicians can be provided with vaccines, and vaccination clinics can be expanded. Even in years with “vaccine mismatch” the vaccine is effective in reducing severe cases that require hospitalization.

So that we don’t meet in the ICU where we will have to talk about breathing machines, life support, and even the possibility of the end of life, please get vaccinated.

Kaylynn Purdy, MD, MS in Health Policy, FRCPC (Neurology), is a Critical Care Medicine Fellow at the University of Calgary.

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