NEWS RELEASE
ROYAL VICTORIA REGIONAL HEALTH CENTRE
*************************
Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) is now offering influenza immunization to staff, physicians, volunteers and students within the health centre to protect patient safety.
“We offer the flu vaccine to team RVH within our health centre to make it easy to receive immunization,” says Janice Skot, president and CEO, RVH.
“We want our care teams to receive the shot in keeping with our commitment to patient safety – our highest priority. I visit with patients every week to gather their feedback about the health centre so I want to make sure I’m healthy and not passing the flu along to them. Many of our patients are in poor health when they arrive at RVH, so we want to ensure we’re doing all we can to protect them from becoming even more ill.”
Flu shots are not mandatory at RVH. Staff, physicians, volunteers and students do have a choice of how they protect patients, as well as themselves, their own families and colleagues.
“While we’re always very aware of protecting our patients, we also encourage team RVH to remember they are protecting themselves, their loved ones and their colleagues by receiving the flu shot,” says Corinne Nesbitt, manager, Occupational Health and Safety, RVH.
“A healthy workplace means staff are here and not home sick with the flu. We need them at RVH - meeting patient needs and providing exceptional care. This is why each year we focus our efforts internally on a three-week flu shot campaign, beginning Oct. 16 and running until Nov. 5 this fall.”
Throughout flu season, as part of RVH’s commitment to patient safety, all patients will be screened for symptoms of influenza upon arrival at the emergency or other patient registration areas. Anyone showing flu-like symptoms such as sudden onset of fever, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, muscle and joint pain and headache, will be required to wear a mask and, when possible, will be isolated from other patients.
*************************
