Toronto Long-Term Care Homes and Services
Quality Care & Service
Pandemic Planning
Pandemic influenza has been identified as a specific hazard that could disrupt the operations of a long-term care home, the health care system and society. It is a possible emergency situation for which appropriate planning is required to ensure all staff are equipped with the knowledge, skills and resources to respond.
Toronto Long-Term Care Homes and Services has worked very closely with Toronto Public Health to develop a Pandemic Plan for our division that is consistent with the federal, provincial and local planning assumptions and documents. Toronto Public Health has been designated by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care as the lead agency for pandemic planning within Toronto. The Toronto Public Health web site has a large amount of useful information about pandemic influenza and pandemic planning.
Our Pandemic Plan was developed to guide LTC staff in their response to a pandemic influenza in Toronto. The Plan has been designed as part of our broader emergency preparedness plan. It reflects current scientific knowledge and planning principles applied at the international, national, provincial and local levels. It incorporates the precautionary principle adopted in Justice Campbell’s SARS Commission Report. While the Plan is as complete as possible at the time of publication, pandemic planning is an ongoing process. The Plan will be reviewed on a regular basis, in conjunction with the City’s emergency preparedness plan, to ensure it remains aligned with national, provincial and local plans and reflects current knowledge on pandemic influenza. Our Plan is aligned with the national, provincial and local goals of pandemic response:
- To minimize serious illness and overall deaths;
- To minimize disruption to essential LTC services as a result of an influenza pandemic; and
- To contribute to an integrated health response in Toronto.
Our Approach to Planning
Although experts agree that a pandemic influenza is inevitable, certain factors remain unpredictable and will only be known once the pandemic virus emerges. These factors include the characteristics of the virus (e.g., attack rate, affected age group, speed of spread), the effectiveness of the response (e.g., vaccines, antiviral drugs) and public behaviour.
To ensure disease uncertainties do not impede our planning efforts, we have endorsed planning assumptions identified in the Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan, the Ontario Health Plan for an Influenza Pandemic 2007 and the Toronto Public Health Pandemic Influenza Plan. These assumptions may be modified as new information becomes available but provided a foundation from which response planning began.
We have an active Pandemic Planning Committee. We have also involved our Joint Health and Safety Committees (JHSCs) in providing input for planning related to worker safety in the event of a pandemic.
Ethical Framework for Pandemic Planning Decision-Making
Individuals and agencies involved in a pandemic response may be required to make difficult decisions regarding the provision of care and allocation of scarce resources. To support the decision making process, the Ontario Health Plan for an Influenza Pandemic 2007 (OHPIP) outlines an ethical framework. We have considered this ethical framework in the development of our Pandemic Plan in order to support staff in their decision making during an influenza pandemic.
OHPIP states stakeholders (e.g., members of the public, patients, health care workers, other organizations) are more likely to accept difficult decisions if the decision making processes are:
- Open and transparent
- Reasonable
- Inclusive
- Responsive
- Accountable
OHPIP further outlines the core ethical values that should be considered during a pandemic response. It states more than one value may be relevant in any given situation and some values will be in tension with others. These core values, which are discussed in greater detail in the OHPIP, include:
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Pandemic Planning Education
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