On the heels of last year’s H1N1 scare, manufacturers are taking a closer look at how to avoid wide-spread workplace absenteeism and productivity declines if faced with another flu pandemic.

With the World Health Organization (WHO) battling accusations that its preparations for the H1N1 pandemic were overblown, emergency management specialists say it’s still important for companies to get ready for major health crises.

(PART 2 OF 4)
Following is part of the transcripts from the first COS Roundtable on Emergency Preparedness, held on August 12 at the Centre for Health and Safety Innovation in Mississauga, Ont. COS editor Mari-Len De Guzman moderated the discussion.

Panelists:
John Hollands, corporate account manager, Ontario Service Safety Alliance
John Parish, chief, provincial fire sector, Municipal Health and Safety Association
Andrew Harkness, senior strategy advisor, healthy workplaces, IAPA
Ralph Dunham, board member, Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness
Doug Morton, director, life sciences and business management, CSA Standards
Jason Lakhan, Gowlings
John Saunders, provincial director, disaster management and international response, Canadian Red Cross – Ontario

Moderator: The H1N1 pandemic we saw last spring is potentially going to resurface this fall flu season. How are organizations preparing for a potentially larger and more widespread comeback of this virus?

Dunham: The organizations that I have talked to or dealt with are all focusing on being better prepared for the fall. A lot of them are looking at what they need to do as a minimum in order to be consistent with their industry and with their equivalence in the public sector and private sector. And they certainly are trying to become more prepared.
 
I think that the challenge that they keep raising is: ‘What is the level of preparedness that we should be at? How far do we go?' And in a lot of cases they look to what are the legislative requirements, and there’s not a lot there from a business perspective. They look to their industry associations, and maybe they will have some guidelines and maybe they won’t. They look to their competitors and the medical officers of health outside of their organization and say, ‘What are the best practices or where should we be?’
 
And in a lot of cases it’s not open discussions. There’s a confidentiality factor and a lot of organizations just won’t release what their pandemic plans are going to entail.

So there is a lack of consistency because this is a relatively new situation. It’s not like a fire. It’s not like a building falling down, it’s not like an earthquake where we have experience upon which we can draw. Now, they did learn a lot through the herald wave at the beginning of this year, in the springtime. And learned things like how effective WHO (World Health Organization) phases are versus severity impacts. So they’re updating those programs and everything else. But again, it is so driven by how much attention it is being paid by the media: If it’s front and centre on the nightly news, then the next day there’ll be a lot of work done. If there’s nothing in the nightly news, the next day there wont be any work done on it.
 
I think the whole topic - and this is a very interesting approach to emergency preparedness because it’s almost defining the roles and responsibilities - there’s this assumption by business that governments will look after these things. And there’s an assumption by the government that 85 per cent of the critical infrastructures are in the private hands, therefore they will look after things. And there’s never been this meeting of the minds as to what are you going to do and what am I going to do and there’s a lot of, ‘Well you tell me first.’
 
So until we break down that communication barrier – whether it’s with H1N1 or whether it’s what to do with the large regional evacuations – until we understand the private-public sector interlocks and where they do miss and where there are gaps, we’re going to have a lot of difficulty, I think, in having that consistent emergency preparedness capability.
 
Parish: Part of the discussions a while back I think when they started talking about worst case scenarios and one of the things in the municipalities that came up was, if in the worst case scenario we had all these deaths and all these things taking place, what were they going to do with the bodies. And understanding that the undertakers and the funeral homes and so on can only handle so much. So the thing came up: ‘Well that’s no problem, we’ll just fire up the arenas and put them all in the arenas and stockpile them,' and things like that. And when everything fixes itself again and the world went back to normal, whenever that was going to be, then we’ll deal with these situations after.
 
I think, we just saw Toronto go through the garbage strike and they filled the arenas and the rinks full of garbage and now people are starting to say, we probably don’t want to go back there again. And we probably don’t want to be there because of contamination and so on and all those issues.
 
So in the municipality side, being the local government they will be looked at as trying to fill in some of these gaps and deal with some of these situations. So now after you fill an arena full of bodies and again as part of the discussion that came up was, ‘ well what if the refrigeration system quits?’ So we always look at the ‘what ifs’. It ended that there wasn’t any answers and we kept going through, which we always do in these types of things, looking at the worst-case scenarios. And they came to a situation in saying, 'well I guess the only thing we would do then is to take them out and dig a whole and burn them and bury them' and stuff like that.
 
So there’s a lot of unknown answers in the municipal sector as to how they would deal with some of these things if it went to the worst-case scenarios. If it didn’t, then it probably wouldn’t be too bad, they will be able to do things. So we really don’t know what’s going to happen and I think municipalities are having a really hard time – being the local government – trying to figure out how they would deal with things if they go to the worst case.
 
So it was just a discussion that ended up going nowhere because it came to a point where nobody had an answer and I think this happens quite often, and maybe this garbage strike, putting everything in the rinks, there may be some answers after that. But who knows what contamination has been leashed out in the soils and all other stuff from a situation like that that we normally don’t ever have to deal with.
 
Saunders: I think that’s another example – from Ralph’s comment – by way of communication breakdowns. A lot of that type of situation has been addressed by the provincial pandemic steering committee by way of planning, by way of the discussions surrounding rinks. Unmarked refrigerator trailers was the recommended option by way of, should there be short term or longer term necessity for overflow while coroners and funeral homes are trying to keep up with, trying to maintain dignity as much as possible. And there was a decision made eventually that there would never be mass graves in Ontario, that is not a viable option within the province or an acceptable option.
 
If that is not being communicated well from the province and the feds to municipalities, it’s another example of where the communication aspect by way of all the partners involved needs to be improved. So that corporations have a good idea what the province and the municipalities are doing – does an individual corporation know what their municipal plans are? Is that conversation happening?
 
I don’t want to redirect the conversation too much in this regard, but for the most part larger industries are doing a good job in emergency management. They are devoting some good resources toward safety, towards emergency planning. Where the biggest gap is in the small and medium sized businesses who just don’t have the resources – material or human – to invest in a large way in business continuity planning.
 
Public Safety Canada recognized that. They have brought the Canadian Red Cross and other members of the voluntary sector together. One area that we were looking at is, for example organizations that provide support to people in their homes. So that they can age at home as opposed to going into an old age facility or hospital. So there are all these different community associations, sometimes they’re 10-people shops. How do they invest in business continuity planning? But yet during a pandemic, their role is going to be vital so that we don’t have a further wave of people needing to be introduced into the hospital setting.
 
So how do we keep those organizations running? Public Safety Canada funded the volunteer sector to put together a website, it’s called Readyforcrisis.ca. It was designed primarily as a not-for-profit to do home support but it gets into the concepts of business continuity, it gets into some templates and the basic planning that’s needed. So that at least it gives them the tools to move forward so that they can start pecking at it.
 
Just being realistic, again, it’s a 10-person operation, it’s a not-for-profit. Where do they come up with the money to hire a consultant to develop a business continuity plan for them? So initiatives like that are happening but we need to start sharing that information. And again, really want to emphasize the point that companies need to talk with their municipalities, municipalities and provinces need to talk better. And provinces and the feds need to start communicating better by way of – what discussions have already happened? What decisions have already been put into place that would have business impacts so that we aren’t duplicating efforts, we are working together. Because that really is the other evolution of emergency management is the partnerships – doing it alone just doesn’t work.

Hollands: I was thinking of last year’s pandemic simulation that was held between the public and the private sector and those simulations are very powerful and probably one of the best experiences of your time that an organization can go through. Both of those were not-for-profit, sponsored in some cases by organizations, very affordable.
 
Each company’s representative or team, would be engaged in their specific sector, as far as that very realistic simulation was concerned. And it made them really think about who are their stakeholders, who are their suppliers, who else relies on them, how do their plans fit in with the public sector side of things, what should they be doing better? And some organizations even found that developing their plan – especially if they are a critical service going out there into the public domain – if they could enhance their preparedness and their skills then, that was seen as a brand enhancer as well.
 
And because of all the questionnaires and supplier responses they are asked of – Are you as my supplier prepared to support me in what I feel are my critical operations? What would you do? What is your role? And how can I rely on that?
 
That brings people together into those conversations quite well, especially from the business point of view where you’re really looking at critical operations.
 
But from the simulation, I still like to plug that again, I know it was delayed this year … but I believe it will go forward. They are planning a cross-Canada simulation to feed that. And that was going to create a national conversation around who would do what in this kind of very public-private crisis.
 
Morton: Going back to Jason’s comment about some province’s mandatory requirements to have an emergency management plan, I have also heard that while in some provinces that is required, the quality or the completeness of plans can vary widely even in provinces where it is mandatory. So I think there is still an issue there in terms of bringing the level of quality up.
 
To John and to Ralph’s point about communication, certainly I would wholeheartedly agree. In traveling across the country we know that there sometimes is a lack of communication between federal governments and provincial governments.
 
About two weeks ago there was an article in The Globe and Mail, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities was still voicing concern that eventhough issues of disasters or pandemic or whatever will hit at a municipal level, they still don’t feel that their voices are being heard in terms of that planning.
 
Maybe it's this issue of where you put bodies is an example of the lack of communication. And certainly across the country we see provinces taking their own initiatives because there isn’t that direction in terms of a national perspective. And we even see some municipalities, in Ottawa for example, there’s now an emergency management group for the hospitals that are trying to come to grips with what they should be doing.
 
So all of these separate initiatives, while commendable and important, really point to the overall lack of integration and communication.
 
Harkness: John made a good point as well with regards to understanding where our suppliers are going to fit into the process. Just anecdotally, when IAPA was going through our initial response in May and what we were going to be needing for resources for our staff, it was really scary how quickly supplies dry up and getting access to whether it’s the respirators or it’s cleaning lotions or gloves or whatever it’s going to be. It was incredible how quickly we had difficulty getting the basic stuff, and even stuff that we thought was on its way never made it. And I’m thinking that’s another piece that can be quite challenging for us. It’s this expectation that not only do we have to manage this from our own perspective, but it’s almost an assumption that yes, our suppliers will still be able to support us, just like everything else. And they are going to be in the same type of glitch and concerns too. Food for thought.
 
Parish: On the supplier side, the transportation industry is going to be another one because everybody depends on just-in-time freight and shipping and stuff like that. People don’t warehouse things anymore so all the supplier, if they are able to make it, then has to travel from point A to point B, which could be across border. So there’s a whole group in there that’s affected, too. So when we look at things that are needed right away it starts out with the supplier, but then we have to get it.

The trucking industry people being exposed to a lot of people would be a whole other area that if they start to lose drivers, which there is already a shortage on a regular basis, then now the trucks are going to sit and the other thing that will happen is that the trucks that were loaded are going to sit too, and they could be who knows where. So it goes from point A to point B and there’s a lot of things in between there that can be affected, that can raise some major concerns for us as to how we actually do get them.
 
I know with the N95 masks there’s a real shortage on trying to get them right now because they were heading to the States and being made in the U.S. They were protecting their interest by maybe withholding stuff like that and not allowing it to be shipped outside of the US. So there’s a lot of little loop holes I guess we’ll call it, that are in there that can affect us that we sometimes have a hard time even being able to control, even with emergency planning and so on.
 
Saunders: As a practical recommendation for organizations when looking at identifying alternate or tertiary suppliers, having a supplier at 123 Main Street and the alternate supplier being at 125 Main Street, probably is not the best idea because if one is impacted, probably the one next door to it is, as well.
 
So if your supplier is in Indonesia, you might want to look at either another country as a secondary or as a redundant supplier so this way you are looking at geographical solutions as well. During a pandemic, who knows how it’s going to work out? But it does increase your odds of continuing a supply chain if you do have those alternate suppliers.
 
And further to that recommendation is to test those alternates. Every once in a while place an order with them. It continues the relationship, but it also builds your trust that you will still be able to count on that as a back up supplier for whatever your primary materials are.
 
Somewhat of a separate issue and a challenge for all of us as emergency management professionals, as well as the occupational health and safety or emergency management personnel, is how to deal with misinformation. So media is a great way for keeping topics on the front page and keeping corporate buy-in there. But unfortunately, we’ve all seen instances where either items have been hyped, misinterpreted, and/or overly, in some cases, minimized.
 
For example, halfway through SARS they realized that N95 masks probably weren’t even required or necessary. There is no scientific proof that N95 masks provided any extra benefit unless it was the person who is sick that is actually the one wearing it. But yet everybody and their brother wanted an N95 mask during SARS. No one even knew what an N95 was before SARS unless you’re in the industry.
 
It’s the same thing now, we’ve got family members going out and buying N95 masks. Again they don’t work well if you don’t know how to fit them properly, so you’re actually causing potentially more of a risk because people are using equipment without having the proper knowledge about how to properly use it.
 
So looking at how do we vet information, researching information and just not believing every story that comes across our desks and doing the research before going out and investing in it. I don’t want the company to stockpile antivirals. We’ve got some companies looking at that as an example. Under the Emergency Powers Act, the province could confiscate those supplies anyway. So you may be doing the government a favour by stockpiling on behalf of your company. I’m not saying that the province or the feds would do that, but they do have the powers to confiscate it if it is in the greater good of the country.
 
So taking a practical aspect with what is it you need to do to protect your people, your business and your community. And keeping it balanced, perhaps is the overall message there about how we approach these things, and not allowing ourselves to be caught up in the flurry of activity or in the passion of the moment.

Related discussions:
Are you ready for an emergency?
Social networking as part of emergency planning
Better coordination between public-private organizations

(PART 1 OF 4)
Following is the first part of transcripts from the first COS Roundtable on Emergency Preparedness, held on August 12 at the Centre for Health and Safety Innovation in Mississauga, Ont. COS editor Mari-Len De Guzman moderated the discussion.

Panelists:
John Hollands, corporate account manager, Ontario Service Safety Alliance
John Parish, chief, provincial fire sector, Municipal Health and Safety Association
Andrew Harkness, senior strategy advisor, healthy workplaces, IAPA
Ralph Dunham, board member, Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness
Doug Morton, director, life sciences and business management, CSA Standards
Jason Lakhan, Gowlings
John Saunders, provincial director, disaster management and international response, Canadian Red Cross – Ontario

Moderator: What are research and studies telling us in terms of the state of readiness of Canadian organizations to deal with an emergency situation?

Ralph Dunham: There is no specific definitive data that we can rely upon, there has been lots of surveys, but I think the real challenge in trying to determine how many or how pervasive it is within organizations is that preparedness is a lot like being healthy; how do you determine if you are healthy or if you are prepared. It’s a continuum – you continue to get more healthy, or you can be unhealthy, but it’s not that you can say, ‘Now I am prepared.’ So I think a lot of organizations, when they are asked the question, have difficulty in interpreting to what extent do they need to be prepared before they can state that they are prepared.
 
Doug Morton: From our perspective at CSA, we launched our emergency management and business continuity standard last October and organizations like the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness, John (Saunders) as well were members of the committee that came up with that standard. And certainly in looking at marketing data, it’s quite clear from that data that in some cases it reports four out of 10 employees within organizations in Canada don’t know whether their companies have an emergency plan. And if they do have an emergency plan, don’t necessarily know what it is. So there does seem to be an issue. And certainly, in discussions that I have had across the country with a variety of organizations, they are at various stages of emergency preparedness. And so I think it is a significant issue that needs to be addressed.
 
John Saunders: With the development of the Z1600 Emergency Management Standard, I think that’s a good step. But there is even some confusion about what emergency management is. For many companies, it’s strictly, ‘Do I have a fire evacuation plan?’ It seems like fire and medical emergencies are covered off by larger companies. But looking beyond that, by way of doing overall risk assessments and recognizing that emergency management is so much larger than just fire and health. It’s really an entire, all-encompassing process that companies and businesses need to go through.
 
Moderator: Beyond the business continuity aspect of an emergency situation, is ensuring the health and safety of your workers. How involved are safety managers in the development of disaster preparedness strategies within an organization?
 
John Hollands: Traditionally, fire and emergency planning has fallen into the health and safety role, having your fire wardens trained, doing drills required by the fire code, first aid responders having those teams in place, having them trained – that’s traditionally been part of the health and safety manager’s role.
 
But integrating that into the business plans and into the organization plans as far as business continuity and high-level emergency planning, crisis management, that sort of thing, it’s fairly new. A lot of the larger organizations do it from a risk management point of view. They have more exposure than the smaller companies. And so I’ve seen, traditionally, they are the ones who seem to lead the field in those plans and developments, and having the crisis communication teams and that sort of thing in place. But the smaller businesses I think are just starting to realize that their business survival and continuity has some risks now, with many more emergencies that we’re looking at such as pandemic, etc.

Andrew Harkness:
I would suggest that our health and safety managers and practitioners, they have a balancing act. They are trying to ensure that the organization is in the prevention mode. Human nature is of the type that says, ‘I tend to respond more than I prepare.’ And we see that time and time again, whether it’s with pandemic – you had SARS – but to what level is the uptake to say how are we prepared for the next go around? We struggle with that.
 
So what I mean, from the health and safety practitioners’ point of view, is you have to elevate, in a way, a sense of urgency to the organization. But in a topic like this, you have to do it in such a way that doesn’t sound like you are in a fear mongering, “Peter-cry-wolf” mode. So I see that as a challenge to be able to say, you know we need to look at these issues. And unfortunately, in many of our organizations – to repeat the other point – is that our program for emergency preparedness is, ‘Yeah, we have a fire plan. And we’re really proud of ourselves if we could run a drill even twice a year.’
 
It’s unfortunately sometimes that level when we look at the standard for Z1600 here. It’s a managing of systems approach, and again, how does that come into the smaller firms to get a look at that and say, ‘How do I make it happen?’ But it is a challenge. How do we be proactive without sounding like we are always crying wolf?

Saunders: I think we need to recognize that, just as the emergency management profession is relatively new, it is evolving. Ten years ago, emergency managers were fire chiefs, we always thought of first responders, and health and safety officers within corporate entities. Their main priority was meeting code and making sure that they weren’t violating legislation, because that was obviously a business risk issue.
 
The whole concept of emergency management within an organization is also evolving. We now have masters program for emergency managers and that’s only two years in the making. So recognizing that organizations will take time to evolve along with the profession, and establishing the fact that not everything can happen at the same time. And this is where a lot of the discussions are, by way of doing that risk assessment and risk analysis, what really is the biggest risk that companies need to face, and basically start chopping them off, one at a time. Because otherwise, executives will be overwhelmed at the cost and it will be very difficult to get buy-in. But if you show the risk to the company, risk to the employees, that’s probably the best way that health and safety managers can approach this without fear mongering, becoming the Chicken Littles that we’ve all been called in our profession at some point. So that it can be a pragmatic approach without hurting the bottom line.
 
Jason Lakhan: Just to pick up on what John and Andrew were saying about the evolution of emergency management, I think an aspect of that evolution is driven by regulatory change. We have now seen the gathering momentum for workplace violence legislation most recently here in Ontario. And while most people wouldn’t traditionally associate emergency management with an acute workplace violence situation, we are being forced to change our thinking to encompass those types of acute situations, simply because of the regulatory change that will require addressing the hazards and coming up with appropriate policies and procedures – including communication, when to call police, when to call other external resources, having control of the situation and educating employees. So I think, as with all aspects of health and safety management, a lot of it is being driven by regulatory change.
 
John Parish: On the emergency side of things, which everybody has touched on just a little bit. I know there’s a real problem in dealing with things like pandemic. Emergency services are well set-up for immediate things that have happened. So if a building falls down, there’s a tornado, there’s a rainstorm, they call in the bell and everybody sort of comes back and you’re doing the same thing.
 
If you’re talking about resources – especially responding to all these areas in a pandemic-type situation – we all saw what happened with SARS where a lot of the emergency people were infected by their “clients.” So a lot of the people that business are counting on responding to assist them are going to be going through the same thing, maybe even worse because they are going to be more apt to be exposed to these hazards, especially the EMS and the fire side because they work together so closely in responding. They are going to be the ones that are going in, the ones that are going to be infected, and then they are going to be the ones that aren’t going to be available the longer the situation goes on.
 
So on the emergency services side probably, if it’s a long drawn out situation where people are sick for a long time, we’re going to lose our emergency workers. And so now, other people in associations, in businesses in that sort of area - Red Cross, St. Johns and people like that – are then going to be drawn in to fill in for some of those areas. And John would know better from the Red Cross side whether there’s enough people available to back fill for all of these people that are not going to be there anymore.
 
Emergency services are talking about this and trying to deal with it and there’s a lot of unanswered things that we’ve not had to deal with before.
 
Morton: If I could just add, it was interesting last night on both CNN and The National on CBC last night they were talking about the capability of health care facilities to handle a pandemic. And they featured, actually, Sunnybrook’s intensive care unit. And one of the things that they talked about was the fact that at any given day that intensive care unit is pretty much full in normal operations. And if a pandemic would have hit, the impact could be quite severe and to your point, John and also the other John’s point, you know when an emergency hits it hits you in the municipality; it hits you at home. And the assumption ofcourse from a health care perspective is that the hospitals will be functioning. Well if the employees are concerned about their families, they may not be there to function. If we have a capacity issue in terms of intensive care units or beds that’s going to be an issue.
 
And again, the issue around what is it that we’re actually planning for? There are all kinds that you need to plan for. The biggest concern over ICU departments, both on the CNN report and The National report, was something as simple as the availability of ventilators for people that are going to have the flu or H1N1 or whatever it happens to be – just a simple thing like ventilators. So there is a lot to consider in terms of emergency planning. It’s an A to Z issue.
Hollands: We need to integrate all these various parts and pieces as part of an overall plan to know what our roles and responsibilities are. And because you’re focusing on the health and safety professionals and the support system that they rely on, I think one of the reasons why business continuity planning is becoming more and more popular is because it does spread and integrate across the organization; you start to build your teams, you start to develop your contingency plans by occupation or by unit within you organization. It almost touches everyone as far as cross-training and call lists and tracking. SARS was a good example of that for some organizations, I know, because they did have that in place. And they were able to communicate with and track everybody because of that business continuity plan and it was practiced, so they had a very good plan in place.
 
I think one of the learnings was that perhaps business continuity planning have traditionally been a financial risk assessment. It’s now being more and more integrated into emergency planning because of that, because of how integrated it is within the organization.
 
And I think also because senior management has exposure to that they can see how the risks compare to, say, the operational risks and the day-to-day health and safety of the organization. For us as managers, it helps us to place those risks in front of management on a regular basis if we follow a management system and set those targets.
 
Saunders: And that’s where getting into business continuity – the old term used to be business recovery or business resumption planning. Business continuity is keeping your operation running. When it comes to pandemic, for example, you may not be able to keep your entire business running. And one of the recommended first steps for most companies is to actually determine what are the essential services; payroll was mentioned, you have to keep paying people otherwise they are going to stop showing up.
 
There is essential work, but what isn’t essential? Red Cross, for example, we run first-aid training programs. During a pandemic, we might reduce service in that regard because how many people are going to want to be in a small room breathing in a mannequin during a pandemic situation. So then we can shift those resources into other essential elements such as our community home support programs, disaster management programs. Because disasters could still happen during a pandemic and that’s the other element, we have to make sure that our business continuity is still there so that we can respond to the house fires, to the tornadoes.
 
So that’s the value of the business continuity concept. Once you’ve determined what those essential services are, then you look at shifting resources. Who can work from home? The estimates right now is that over the course of a pandemic a third of your workforce will not be available. Again, I need to emphasize that is over the course of the pandemic, it won’t just be one week and all of a sudden a third of everybody is gone.
 
Harkness: If I could I’d like to come back to Jason’s point and we’re talking about: where does legislation fit into this kind of conversation? Just food for thought: Confined space entry as an example and the components within the legislation here in Ontario that require organizations to no longer rely on external services for part of the emergency planning piece. I think it’s a good wake up call for employers to take those steps necessary to say look, ‘We have to be accountable and responsible for managing the work processes that we create for ourselves.’ So I think there are advantages to seeing things come through from a legislative point of view.
 
But as long as we recognize that that is only raising the bar at quite a low level, but at least it is a step to encourage the kind of conversations that we want to have in the other matters. And as you say, ‘Even if I could get my organization to look at a business continuity perspective.’ From the fact that pandemic planning as it’s being seen in the media right now, maybe that is a good example for what a practitioner can hinge on and say, ‘Yeah you know it’s payroll that we need to get hung up on and make sure that we’re clear with.’ And then when we have time to sort of take a breather from this, that’s the opportunity to go back then and say, “Let’s pick a couple more out of this and help us build our program that way.’
 
Hollands: Just on that thread, the Campbell Report was, I thought, very influential because although not a regulation, it gave very clear recommendations for improvement in the health care sector and clearly spilling into all workplaces for their organization to take reasonable steps to protect employees in the case of a hazard, like infectious disease, that could affect the employees.
 
I believe health and safety folks have been front and centre in that for most organizations in looking at PPE, enhanced cleaning and all those aspects of facilities, looking at the numbers and trying to come up with recommendations for the organizations that they can implement. I believe the Ministry of Labour, WSIB are clearly in a position there to do some enforcement if required; we still don’t know what that would look like.

Related discussions:
Preparing for H1N1 resurgence
Social networking as part of emergency planning
Better coordination between public-private organizations

 

From pandemic preparedness and emergency management to terrorism and cyber attacks, the organizers of the upcoming 19th World Conference on Disaster Management has lined up a number of high-profile experts to speak on a variety of topics of great interest to the health and safety community.

With the H1N1 virus boosted today from a level five pandemic alert to a level six – out of a possible six levels – by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness (CCEP) is urging communities and companies to exercise caution as they prepare for the full-scale pandemic.

On April 29, 2009 the World Health Organization raised its H1N1 Virus alert level to Phase 5, only one rating level short of an official global pandemic. In addition to tragic human loss, the presence of a pandemic could profoundly affect business.

How would a pandemic affect my organization?

Pandemic refers to the spread of an illness or disease across a wide, geographic area. It has been estimated that between 1/3 and a 1/2 of a given human population will become sick at some point during a pandemic. This includes employees.

Legal Considerations

If the H1N1 Virus is found to create a serious public health risk, sweeping measures could be proclaimed in Canada, similar to those already declared in Mexico. The Federal and Provincial governments have extensive authority to declare an emergency and curtail public and private activities, which can result in orders prohibiting travel, requiring individuals to remain at home and closing down institutions and private businesses (i.e., via employment standards acts, occupational health and safety acts, human rights codes, Quarantine Act, Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act, etc.)

If an emergency is declared employers should be aware that statutory provisions exist which protect employees’ jobs. In Ontario, for example, for so long as a declared emergency is in effect, the Employment Standards Act requires an employer to grant unpaid leave and maintain any applicable benefits plan for any employee unable to attend work due to the emergency. Employees’ jobs are also protected if they have to be absent from work due to being needed to care for an ill family member, or in order to care for a child who must stay home due to closure of a school or daycare facility.

Business Considerations

Planning for an employee shortage, and determining how to manage employees during a crisis, are vital components of any business, pandemic preparedness plan. Consider the following issues:

Containment

• Are employees trained in ways to stop or slow the spread of the virus within the workplace?
• Have you directed sick employees to stay home?

Pandemic Preparation and Response Team

• Create a team. Ensure representatives have expertise in human resources, operations, health and safety and communications (if possible).

Identification & Communication

• How will your organization communicate with employees at the workplace and at home?
• Is there an early warning system to alert management of illness in the workplace?
• How should employees report their status during a pandemic; what information are they required to communicate to the employer; and when are they are expected to not report to work?

Impact on Your Workplace

• How is work performed in your organization?
• What vulnerabilities exist?
• How will labour shortage affect operations, your supply chain (locally and internationally) and your ability to serve customers?

Proactive Preparedness

• Conduct an audit of your workplace.
• Can business operations be reorganized in the face of a pandemic?
• How flexible is your workforce?
• Are there factors that may limit flexibility (e.g. the terms of a collective agreement and/or employment contract, etc.)?
• If the workplace is unionized, will the union cooperate and assist?
• What is the minimum number of employees necessary to keep the organization functioning?
• In which capacities?
• Are employees trained to assume other roles if necessary?
• Are employees able to work from home or in alternative locations?
• Can work be done without direct human-to-human contact (i.e., teleconferencing or video conferencing)
• Does the organization’s insurance provide sickness or disability coverage, including for employees who may be ordered to stay in quarantine but who are not sick?
• Are there security or shut-down issues that require particular consideration?

To learn more and/or for assistance preparing your organization, contact Sherrard Kuzz at 416.603.0700 or through our 24 hour line which is always answered by one of our lawyers: 416.420.0738 www.sherrardkuzz.com.

Sherrard Kuzz LLP is one of Canada’s leading management-side employment and labour law firms. The information contained in this article is provided for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal or other professional advice. Reading this Newsblast does not create a lawyer-client relationship. Readers are advised to seek specific legal advice from members of Sherrard Kuzz LLP (or their own legal counsel) in relation to any decision or course of action contemplated.

Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq and chief public health officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones, have confirmed 36 new cases of H1N1 flu virus (human swine flu), bringing the total number of laboratory confirmed cases in Canada to 201.

“The Government of Canada continues to monitor the spread of this virus and is committed to providing Canadians with timely and accurate information,” said Minister Aglukkaq. “Knowledge of transmission patterns will help public health professionals and the public stay current on issues related to this influenza.”

Public Health Agency of Canada wants to ensure Canadians learn everything they can to protect themselves against the H1N1 Influenza Virus. Here are some quick facts about the virus and how to protect yourself.

Swine influenza
Swine influenza is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by the influenza A virus.

H1N1 flu virus (human swine flu)
Swine flu viruses do not normally infect humans. From time to time, human infections do occur, resulting in H1N1 flu virus (human swine flu). H1N1 flu virus (human swine flu) is a respiratory illness that causes symptoms similar to those of the regular human seasonal flu.

Transmission
Sometimes, humans and animals can pass strains of flu back and forth to one another through direct close contact. When a swine influenza virus does affect a human, there is also a risk that the animal influenza can mutate and then spread directly between humans.

More investigation is needed on how easily the virus spreads between people, but it is believed that it is spread the same way as regular seasonal influenza. Influenza and other respiratory infections are transmitted from person to person when germs enter the nose and/or throat.

Symptoms
Symptoms include fever, fatigue, lack of appetite, coughing, and sore throat. Some people with H1N1 flu virus (human swine flu) have also reported vomiting and diarrhea.

Flu shot
It is unlikely that the seasonal flu shot will provide protection against H1N1 flu virus (human swine flu). The flu shot will protect against the seasonal flu, which is still circulating in Mexico.

Pandemic
Pandemic influenza is defined as a new influenza virus that spreads easily between humans and affects a wide geographic area.  More information is needed to determine how easily this virus spreads.

Vaccine
A vaccine is any preparation intended to produce immunity to a disease by stimulating the production of antibodies. Canada has a plan for a vaccine to be produced domestically if a pandemic occurs, which will take about six months once the virus is identified. Enough pandemic vaccine will be produced to cover all Canadians.

Antivirals
Antivirals are drugs used for the prevention and early treatment of influenza. Two antivirals that appear to be effective  in treating this illness are oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza).

The number of confirmed cases of the Human Swine Influenza (H1N1) in Canada has grown and have now reached more than 160, according to latest data from Public Health Agency of Canada.

Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Quebec have all reported confirmed cases of the H1N1 flu virus.