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By HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN
mclaughlin.heather@dailygleaner.com

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First-responders such as Fredericton's police officers and firefighters should be given priority access to H1N1 flu vaccinations, says the capital city's deputy mayor.

Bruce Grandy is calling on the provincial and federal governments to rethink who is included in its priority groups and add police and fire workers as essential front-line responders who need H1N1 flu protection.

"It really concerns me," Grandy said. "All of our first-responders should be inoculated in the priority category."

Grandy said in Fredericton's case, it managed to have its fire-fighting force given the injections before the provincial Health Department altered its priority list.

But on Monday, police Chief Barry MacKnight said police officers have to line up with the general public for their inoculations.

"Before the designation changed this (past) weekend, our firefighters were inoculated because they got through prior to this change, but if they hadn't of, they wouldn't have been able to get inoculated this time," Grandy said.

When police officers attempted to attend alongside of their fire-fighting brethren at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital flu clinics, they were denied the H1N1 shot, Grandy said.

"This concerns me greatly. When we're talking about service to the public you can imagine police officers down at The Tannery, for example, and something breaks out and they're involved in a scrum with a bunch of individuals ... they're face-to-face to them.

"They're subjected to the same things as the fire department when they go to rescue a person out of a car or out of a house," Grandy said.

"I really don't understand why this designation hasn't taken place. I'm really concerned about the police departments and the fire departments not being up front with the health workers. I think it's mandatory and I would call on the government to change its priority list."

Dr. Eilish Cleary, chief medical officer of health, said Wednesday that the province made no special arrangements for critical infrastructure employees - such as police officers, firefighters and municipal employees - because the priority has been to protect as many citizens as possible in the key priority groups.

She said those essential municipal employees will be able to access the vaccine as it becomes available to the general population, unless they have special circumstances - such as a chronic condition.

"The healthy ones are not at any higher risk than the rest of the population," she said.

She told reporters that most of New Brunswick's municipalities have prepared pandemic planning processes and she expects those measures will keep officers on the beat and firefighters ready to roll when the alarm bell rings.

"From what we're seeing, people are getting flu-like symptoms, they're off work for a day or two, and mostly they can go back very quickly," she said.

"So we didn't feel that their risks at an individual level, or at a risk to society, were so high that we needed to put them ahead of other people in terms of the priority. It was recognized that they would certainly benefit from it, but it was a question of doing those who need it most and then doing them after."

Grandy said federal bureaucrats saw fit to inoculate prisoners over security providers such as police officers.

"I'm very concerned about how they (Ottawa) organized this inoculation process, and I'm very concerned about the priorities they've given to individuals," Grandy said.

"I would like to see all our police officers done as soon as possible."

The RCMP says it isn't being given advance access to vaccine and the members of the national force in New Brunswick will have to line up with the general public for their H1N1 shots.

With files from The Daily Gleaner reporter Adam Bowie