Planning for Pandemic Flu

Planning for Pandemic

City Council has approved the City of Windsor's Corporate Pandemic Plan:

The term "pandemic" refers to a widespread outbreak of an illness (i.e. avian influenza) that afflicts a large percentage of the population. In the case of avian influenza, this kind of human-to-human transmission has not occurred to date.

It has been projected that a significant amount of the workforce could be absent during a pandemic due to personal illness or the need to stay home to care for someone who is ill, or to provide child or elder care. The onus is on the City to identify those services that are considered essential to the health and well being of its citizens and to develop plans that would re-focus the efforts of available staff on maintaining service in those areas.

The Corporate Pandemic Planning Committee focused its work on five elements:

• Identification of essential corporate services
• Approximate number of staff needed to provide essential services
• Estimation of number of staff available for redeployment
• Skill sets required to provide essential services
• Skill sets of current staff
• Development of departmental protocols for provision of essential services

The City of Windsor Pandemic Plan, while a stand-alone document, is intended to serve as a complementary document to the Windsor-Essex County Pandemic Influenza Plan (WECPIP), which dovetails with federal and provincial pandemic influenza plans. For more information, visit the Windsor Essex County Health Unit website at www.wechealthunit.org.

Continuity Plans for Community Businesses

In the course of developing the City of Windsor Corporate Pandemic Plan, the planning committee also developed two documents that can be useful tools for pandemic planning by community businesses.

• Tool Kit for Business Continuity Planning
• Pandemic Communications Business Tool

Other Information Resources

In 2005, with increasing reports of the possibility of a pandemic from avian influenza (bird flu), the Windsor-Essex County Pandemic Influenza Planning Committee was formed under the auspices of the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit. It includes representatives from health care, emergency, social services, and community service organizations. The committee formed six subcommittees including Surveillance, Vaccine and Antiviral, Health Care, Community Care, Emergency Services, and Communications.

Community businesses and residents are invited to inform themselves by visiting the avian influenza section of the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit website. On this site you will find health and safety precaution information from all three levels of government, as well as from many other agencies. Information sheets are available in a wide variety of languages.