GPs unsure about swine flu vaccine indemnity

THE issue of whether family doctors are indemnified against any negative fall-out from the swine flu vaccine remains unclear, with just one day left for GPs to sign up to the Health Service Executive’s (HSE) pandemic vaccination programme.

Following talks yesterday with the HSE, the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) said the indemnity issue remained unresolved and GPs were also unsure of the implications of a request from the HSE to identify patients aged six months to 65 years with specific at risk conditions.

“There are issues particularly around asking GPs to commit to identifying every at-risk patient,” said IMO GP committee spokesperson Dr Ronan Boland. “Some doctors rely entirely on manual records, some patients attend very infrequently. It’s a huge undertaking. There are indemnity issues here that we need clarified.”

Last week the HSE wrote to individual GPs asking them to indicate by October 9 whether they were willing to take part in a pandemic vaccination programme.

The letter was greeted with dismay by the IMO, which claimed it had been sent out without any real engagement with the union, whose role is to deal with all contractual issues surrounding new arrangements.

Yesterday, talks requested by the IMO concentrated on clarifying issues the union felt represented a legal impediment to taking part in the vaccination programme. Both the IMO and the HSE described the talks as positive. A spokesperson for the HSE said they had already received a number of positive responses to their request to GPs to take part in the programme.

Even if GPs do not sign up, the HSE has a detailed mass vaccination programme, which will involve administering the vaccine in up to 100 locations around the country, including schools, parish halls, community centres and HSE buildings. Public health doctors and other HSE staff will administer the vaccine in two doses, three weeks apart, to 90% of the population.

It is the remaining 10% at-risk groups that GPs have been asked to vaccinate, including those with chronic respiratory disease, chronic heart disease and chronic renal disease, chronic liver disease, chronic neurological disease, immunosuppression, haemoglobinopathies, diabetes and morbid obesity, as well as pregnant women in the second and third trimester. Approximately bout 130,000 doses of the vaccine Pandemrix are to arrive in Ireland at the weekend and vaccination is to begin on October 19.

Separately, addressing the Oireachtas Health committee, HSE representatives said the number of critical care beds allocated for patients suffering from swine flu was to be doubled.