If all hell breaks loose in this fall’s flu pandemic, will the medics be there to help?

Only one out of six public health workers says he or she won’t roll out the firehouse door if the projected pandemic levels of H1N1 flu rolls across the country later this year.

Photo doh.state.fl.us

According to a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control, no matter how bad the problems become, there are medical people who won’t respond.

Dr. Daniel Barnett is the lead author of the study and an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of Environmental Health Sciences in Baltimore. He wrote that “overall, 16 percent of the workers surveyed said they would not report regardless of the severity of the outbreak.”

The study, based on a survey of 1,835 public health workers in Minnesota, Ohio and West Virginia, was published in this week’s Occupational Health and Safety magazine.

The good news is the findings are a significant improvement over a 2005 study, in which more than 40 percent of public health employees said they would ignore the emergency.

I have lots of friends in emergency medicine and the dozen or so that I told about the 1-in-6 number disputed it. Some said it was too high and others, even in the same ER, said ot was far too low. The only thing that almost all agreed with was the belief that those with children, especially young ones, would been very cautious about jumping into the flu fray – pandemic or not.

The magazine reported that last month, Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, recommended that health care workers get the 2009-10 seasonal flu vaccine and also the H1N1 vaccine when it’s ready.

“I want to make a special reminder to health care workers,” Schuchat said. “This year in particular, we want to keep health care workers healthy” so they can help people who do become sick, she said.

It’s “very likely” health care workers will be included among the groups for which the government will recommend the H1N1 flu vaccine when it is available this fall.

For more details on the study, here’s a link to the article.