How to deal with a crisis
Now that the dust seems to be settling on the swine flu scare, it is a good time to step back and assess how well Canada responded.
As of May 2009, swine flu has not become a deadly epidemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) still has this disease on a Level 5 pandemic alert. But it seems to be relatively contained in Canada.
Many people I talk to seem to think that the whole thing was blown out of proportion; but was it? Perhaps it is because we now have the pandemic systems in place that swine flu has passed us by.
Certainly, in the early days of the news on swine flu we all had reason to be concerned; it was deadly for some Mexicans who contracted it. The early deaths were among people 25 to 45, a common trait of pandemic flu. It was late in the season—not a good sign.
After the SARS outbreak in 2002 and 2003, both the global community and the Canadian medical community realized they were not ready for a pandemic. The disease had a fatality rate of 9.6 per cent. It spread from Guandong province in China around the world in a matter of weeks. Forty-three deaths occurred in Toronto from SARS. One of the reasons was that there was little preparation for quarantines.
There has been universal praise for how Canada's health minister, Leona Aglukkaq, handled the crisis. She was very available to the media. She personally contacted opposition critics, MPs in the other parties responsible for health issues. She arranged for regular briefings from Health Canada officials.
This is in contrast to other crises in government where everyone seems to go into damage control mode rather than transparency mode.
The Public Health Agency, a body created after SARS to deal with crises like pandemics, went on high alert. Now you have to recognize that this agency is still staffed by bureaucrats who operate under rules and policies. For bureaucrats, they operated at lightening fast speed. But it still took a full week for them to get information brochures ready to give to travellers returning from Mexico.
The Public Health Agency started 'round-the-clock operations. This is a big challenge for bureaucrats unused to shift work. While it seemed like a good idea to have people working 12-hour shifts three days on and three days off, it sometimes meant that a key person was not available when needed.
It is a real challenge to know when to go into immediate crisis mode and when to soft-pedal an issue, especially one as important as health. For example, despite the fact that swine flu seems to have developed into a fairly run-of-the-mill flu, the Chinese government quarantined Canadian students for a week even though not one of them was sick. No doubt the heavy-handed response resulted from their experience with the SARS outbreak that killed 349 Chinese.
The WHO has been predicting a serious pandemic for several years. They say it is not a matter of whether, but rather when and where. This means that every country needs to have a plan that is ready to go into immediate action. It needs to be a preventative plan that will be workable and effective.
Swine flu could be back in the fall in a much more deadly form. And if it is not swine flu, some day it will be something else. This outbreak tested our system and showed the cracks.
One Christian organization, Bridges of Love, has dedicated itself to helping churches prepare not only for a pandemic but for ministry opportunities during a pandemic. Historically, churches have been very active in caring for the sick during these times of crisis. Not only should our government be prepared for action, churches and individual Christians can and should also be prepared.
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