H1N1 taking financial toll on N.S. health authorities

Fighting the swine flu pandemic could put Nova Scotia's biggest health authority in a $2.5-million deficit by the end of the year, officials said Wednesday.

Chris Power, the president and CEO of the Capital District Health Authority, said the district had spent about $760,000 so far to fight H1N1. The bulk of that amount was spent on supplies, while approximately $160,000 was spent on extra staffing and overtime.

"If you just straight-line it based on where we are today if nothing else changes and we continue to have this same level, you know we'll probably be at about a $2.5-million deficit," Power said.

"But I think it's not prudent of us to make that projection at this point because we don't know what tomorrow will bring."

Power said she was optimistic the district's books would be balanced by the end of the fiscal year in March and that the Department of Health would help make that happen.

Officials with the Pictou County Health Authority echoed the desire to receive help from the provincial government.

"We believe the Department of Health at year end or post-pandemic will pick that cost up," said Patrick Lee, the chief executive of Pictou Health.

Lee said swine flu costs have so far eaten up about $200,000 of the health authority's estimated $300,000 budget for dealing with the pandemic.

Premier Darrell Dexter said his government would be looking to the federal government for helpcover the cost of delivering the H1N1 vaccine when the pandemic subsides.

"If you look at this as a national event a national initiative then obviously on the delivery side the national government should play a part in that," he said Wednesday.

Dexter said Ottawa has agreed to look at the costs associated with the swine flu and that the province will tabulate the costs once the current wave has passed.

Absentee rates manageable

Lee and Power both said Wednesday that the effect of swine flu on staff absentee rates had not been as bad as they previously feared.

"It's about normal, actually," Lee said. "We established a baseline about two months out so we're notsurprised."

He said the daily absentee rate for front-line health-care workers fluctuates between four and 10 per cent in the Pictou County Health Authority, although it's difficult to determine how much of that is due to H1N1.

The absentee rate could decrease further in the weeks to come because about 65 per cent of health-care workers in the Pictou authority have received H1N1 shots, Lee added.

It's the same figure in the Capital District Health Authority, which reported staff absentee rates ranging from four to 20 per cent.

"We plan for the worst and we hope for the best and if we were kind of on a scale of one to 10 we're probably midway through," Power said.

"It has impacted our organization but we haven't seen the high level of illness in our community that we have seen like out West and in some of the United States and other areas."

She said health officials had prepared for a loss of up to one-third of their staff during pandemic planning.