Flu season is here and many children will eventually need some sort of medicine to fight off illness.
However, a lengthy medicine shortage has left parents with very few treatment options.
According to the federal government’s website, several products are running low in stores due to an “unprecedented demand.” Some of these products include children’s Tylenol and Advil.
Dr. Fernando Spencer, a physician at Shouldice Hospital located in Thornhill, noticed the same thing.
“The reason for that is the increase of respiration infections when the time gets colder so the demand increased significantly,” he said.
Spencer, a father of an 18-month-old son, had to deal with the shortage of medicine.
He told Humber’s Et Cetera he’s had to deal with patients that need these medicines for their kids and he also had to deal with not being able to buy medicine for his son, Lucca.
From his experience, Spencer said that kids’ hospital occupancy has increased because more children are suffering from respiratory infections. Unsurprisingly they are getting infected interacting with other toddlers at school or daycare centres.
Parents are forced to miss work to take care of their kids while these kids have to miss some learning time.
Spencer said parents may not be able to stay home with their kids while they are sick and it is important for the kids to go to school and daycare.
“They learn a lot. My child goes to daycare and we see new words and new skills,” he said.
At a news conference on Nov. 25 in Ottawa, Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos announced a new shipment of medicine would be coming to Canada in the next few weeks.
Duclos said that in addition to the one million bottles of several different medications that had been sent earlier, there will be an additional 500,000 bottles delivered over the coming weeks.
“This is exactly the type of news that Canadians want to hear,” Duclos said at the news conference.
Spencer said the experience of this medicine shortage really opened up a scary perspective for parents.
“You think that you are in Canada, a first-world country and that you’re going to be safe from this and actually you are not,” he said.
Should parents go through this crisis again, Spencer said he recommends parents have their kids get the flu shot if they can and avoid any unnecessary interactions.
Spencer also suggested giving kids with fevers a cold sponge bath. He admitted that it would be uncomfortable for little ones, but it can really make a difference.
When consulting with pharmacists about this matter, Spencer said that they seem very confident in these new shipments and that everything will fix itself.