Media Statement - Medcan to Offer H1N1 Vaccines to General Public

    John Mozas, President & Chief Operating Officer, The Medcan Clinic
    (Toronto)

TORONTO, Nov. 1 /CNW/ - On Friday afternoon, The Medcan Clinic received enough doses of the H1N1 vaccine from Toronto Public Health for 8% of our total patient population. Medcan is focusing on vaccinating those who are at high risk for developing complications from H1N1, such as patients with chronic health conditions and young children. We are one of more than 100 private physician offices in the GTA to have received the vaccine.

Upon receiving the H1N1 vaccine, Medcan immediately set up a vaccination clinic. We asked our employees to work overtime and hired additional nurses. We began vaccinating patients Friday evening (October 30, 2009) and have continued to operate our clinic on both Saturday and Sunday by appointment and at no cost to our patients. Each patient has been screened to ensure that he or she is high risk and has been required to sign a declaration to that effect before the vaccine is administered.

We are very proud of Medcan's approach to vaccinating high risk individuals, including our patients, their children and loved ones. Our employees and our medical staff have gone above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that we take care of high risk patients.

Within hours of setting up our clinic, government officials announced that the vaccine shortage was much more serious than first anticipated.

As a company, we believe that our duty of care extends to the greater community. We will, therefore, be administering a significant portion of our vaccines by appointment to members of the general public who are high risk. Medcan will be asking Toronto Public Health to help determine the vaccine distribution strategy by identifying those most at risk, which perhaps could include people with disabilities who find it difficult to stand in line and people who should not be exposed to the health risks of massive gatherings. We will then work with Public Health to set up appointments for these patients at Medcan.

Medcan's goal continues to be to avoid preventable deaths by vaccinating Canadians who need it most.

For further information: Media Contact: Bronwen Evans, VP Corporate Affairs, bronwenevans@medcan.com, (416) 350-8374 (office), (647) 448-8374 (cell), www.medcan.com