That was how Paul Friedlander finally got his dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in September.
The 12-year-old has a needle phobia, and while he desperately wants to receive his second dose, his fears are proving hard to overcome.
“My brain and my body just do not let me get this injection,” he said.
His mom, Anna Eberhardt Friedlander, is looking for the Vancouver nurse who poked a stalk of grass into her son’s arm to mimic the pressure of a needle and spent over an hour comforting him before he got the jab at a pop up clinic at the University of British Columbia.
She’s hoping the nurse could again help her son overcome his fear so he could get a second dose of the vaccine but has so far not had luck finding the nurse, whom she only knows by her first name, Rosa.
The family tried to get Paul vaccinated a second time, but he said the experience was traumatizing, and they’re unsure when they’ll try again.
Paul and his mother, Anna Eberhardt Friedlander, are trying to track down the nurse who comforted Paul during his first vaccine dose so she might be able to help him get his second. (Andrew Lee / CBC News )
Provinces could do more to address fears
About 4.5 per cent of adults in Canada have a severe phobia of needles, according to the Canadian Psychological Association. It’s characterized by a persistent fear of needles and intense anxiety or distress around having blood work done or receiving injections.
Anna Taddio investigates needle phobias, particularly in children, at the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.
She says while most nurses receive training in how to make people feel more relaxed around getting needles, there are a myriad easy and often free ways to put people with intense needle phobia at ease.
Offering longer appointments with lots of time to talk the procedure through or letting people walk outside for fresh air can make a big difference, she says.
As provinces expand their vaccination programs to school-age children and unvaccinated adults, Taddio says, it makes sense for health providers to embed more accommodating practices in their vaccine rollout.
“If you actually have a fear of needles, that can be the only reason that’s preventing you from getting vaccinated,” Taddio said.
Erin Ledrew runs a special clinic in Toronto at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health offering COVID-19 vaccines and flu shots to people with needle phobia. She says they see about a dozen people a day with needle fears. (Simon Dingley / CBC News)
Play their cards right
Taddio and other needle phobia experts say it’s important to not dismiss a person’s phobia but to empower them by giving them choices.
One strategy is called the CARD system.
Patients are shown cards labelled with letters and told to choose their preferred intervention, Taddio says: “c” for comfort, “a” for asking questions, “r” for relax and “d” for distract.
If someone chooses distraction, they might be given a basket of fidgeting toys to divert their attention.
Using the CARD system means staff can customize patients’ experiences have better outcomes, Taddio says.
“It can reduce the vaccine side-effects that people who are afraid or anxious of needles have,” she said. “It decreases what we call immunization stress-related responses. So this includes fear, pain, dizziness and even fainting.”
Amrita Nayak says her fear of needles increased as she got older. She is now fully vaccinated and shares her experiences getting the COVID vaccine with other needle-phobic people online in a bid to encourage them to get the jab. (Submitted by Amrita Nayak)
It’s a system employed by Erin Ledrew at a special clinic offering COVID-19 vaccines and flu shots to needle-phobic people at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.
About a dozen needle-phobic people come in each day, Ledrew says.
She says it’s important to try to get someone’s experience right the first time because the stress and anxiety from the visit can compound and make people unwilling to try to get a needle again.
“We really need to pay attention to the fears that people have and trying to help support them in whatever capacity,” she said.
Facing your fears
At the age of 31, Amrita Nayak cannot stand the sight of needles, even in a sewing kit.
In May, Amrita lined up for 40 minutes at a large vaccination clinic in Calgary and got her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Standing in line for 40 minutes as people talked about needles and receiving the jab while surrounded by other people also getting needles was an experience that left her upset and shaking.
“I could not look away from it, and I knew I was going to embarrass myself in front of everyone. So that made me really uncomfortable,” she said.
Her second dose was much better.
At her request, her husband made an appointment for her to receive the shot in a private cubicle and kept it a secret until the last minute. Having less time to become anxious about the needle and getting jabbed in private, she says, helped her control her anxiety.
She is now fully vaccinated and shares her story of getting the shot in an online needle-phobia community to encourage more people to get the vaccine as soon as they can.
“There are very, very few people out there who understand what it feels like to be really scared of something that you cannot avoid,” she said.
If you have a phobia, Public Health experts recommend that before you get vaccinated, you:
Communicate with nurses about your fears.
Ask to go outside for some fresh air.
Practice breathing techniques.
Ask if there’s a private place where the vaccine can be administered.
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
