Nurse: 'I was fired for refusing flu shot'

Nurses COVID

Published

Just to let you all know, that the ONE job I applied for that just happened to open up at the same time I refused the flu shot was just offered to me! Woohoo!! When God closes a door, He opens a window. :)

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Specializes in Anesthesia.

Last year my hospital said get the shot or wear a mask. This year they are saying the mandatory flu shot is a condition of your employment unless you have a medical contraindication to the vaccine. I have worn the mask 2 years in a row, haven't gotten a flu shot since 2008, and didn't get the flu all those years. If an employee wants the shot, by all means, but if I don't...

This bites!

Wow. Our hospital does ask for everyone to get their flu shots, but we are given a choice: If we don't get it, we are required to wear a mask when in patient contact for the duration of the flu season for our hospital (Oct-Apr). But at least we aren't fired. That's just crazy talk.
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Specializes in Psychiatric.

Who ever said FOLLOW THE MONEY is absolutely right. Who benefits the most? The pharmaceutical companies who are pushing for flu vaccines - I agree if you are high risk- you should probably get it. But to force normally healthy people with adequate immune systems is probably not necessary regardless of where you work.

If it becomes common place in hospitals and healthcare settings, what is next? Teachers? The argument could be that they are around children, then maybe retail employess - afterall, they are serving the public. Above all, this is setting a precedent and nurses are caving, not out of ethical obligation, but out of fear. Hospitals are able to FORCE this on employees and especially nurses now because they CAN due to economics. But it constitutes nothing more than battery and bullying!!

This is the United States, the land of the free, we need to stand up for ourselves and freedom of choice and say "no thank you, I don't think the flu shot is right for me; I am a healthy adult, able to make my own decisions without fear of retribution or job loss." And until someone catches on and initiates a class action law suit against these hospitals and stops this practice, more and more hospitals will continue to follow suit.

CrazyHands

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Specializes in ICU.

Ask a neurologist if he or she gets the flu/H1N1 vaccine. I bet they hem and haw because they have all seen an immunocompromised or auto- immune disorder person trached and pegged due to Guillan Barre syndrome from a damn flu shot.

I have.

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Hmmm, no one wants to respond to my last post????

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Specializes in Psychiatric.

I agree we all should wear a mask. I wore a mask all last year during "Flu and COLD season". And guess what? I didn't get the Flu (no vaccine here), nor a cold, nor bronchitis or whatever rhinovirus or URI that was going around from the multitude of patients and co-workers that I came incontact with - and let's not forget friends, family, general public.

Perhaps it is because I am not high-risk (according CDC), I don't smoke, when I come into work I clean every surface (phones, keyboards, mice, etc) that has been touched and I might use, I wash my hands, use gloves when appropriate and use hand sanitizer. My point? There are other ways to protect yourself during the Cold and Flu season, then to jump on the propaganda bandwagon. The flu is only one small hazard in the healthcare or public arena. As nurses we can protect oursleves and patients to the best of our ability by following good infection control practices across the board. Amen.

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I would just be happy to see doctor's and other hospital staff WASH THEIR HANDS with SOAP & WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is amazing how many infectious diseases can be prevented with proper hand hygiene. I'm just saying.

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Morte, thanks for posting the article.

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People are always talking about evidence in the health care field, well there is the evidence. I guess many health facilities have yet to learn about this article or are just playing blind to it. Thanks again for posting this.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Just to let you all know, that the ONE job I applied for that just happened to open up at the same time I refused the flu shot was just offered to me! Woohoo!! When God closes a door, He opens a window. :)

I'm happy for you......congratulations.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

As a DES (Diethylstilbestrol) daughter and a sufferer of an auto-immune disorder....... I often wonder what these wonderful medical miracles, drugs, treatments, genetically engineered foods, DDT..... have done to my immune system all in the name to make a healthier me.

So should people still dutifully line up for their flu shots? Older kids and healthy adults do get some protection from them; just perhaps not as much as they want or expect. But for seniors and toddlers, there may never be a clear answer to this question, particularly because the U.S. government is unlikely to conduct additional clinical trials. On Monday, Osterholm and a group of five other scientists at the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy published a report highlighting the need for better alternatives. Although the current options may--for most people--be better than nothing, "we can no longer accept the status quo," they wrote. "The perception that current vaccines are already highly effective in preventing influenza is a major barrier to pursuing game-changing alternatives."

Do I trust the government, hospitals, administrators to really be concerned for my welfare?? The answer is again.....no.

Until the 1950s, S. marcescens was erroneously believed to be a nonpathogenic "saprophyte",[3] and its reddish coloration was used in school experiments to track infections. It has also been used as a simulant in biological warfare tests by the United States Military.[10][11] On September 26 and 27, 1950, the United States Navy conducted a secret experiment named "Operation Sea-Spray" in which some S. marcescens was released by bursting balloons of it over urban areas of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Although the Navy later claimed the bacteria were harmless[citation needed], beginning on September 29, 11 patients at a local hospital developed very rare, serious urinary tract infections, and one of these individuals, Edward J. Nevin, died. Cases of pneumonia in San Francisco also increased after S. marcescens was released
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