"Mandatory Flu Shots Hit Resistance"

I don't understand my employers thinking. The regular seasonal flu shot is mandatory and if we refuse we have to wear a mask for 12 hours, 3 days a week from Oct 1-March 31. The H1N1 is voluntary. Go figure.

The flu shot has never been mandatory before. I understand that the policy in all HCA facilities.

"CrunchRN; Right, and thank gawd you have your rights, and who cares about who you might put at risk because you got your way and the hell with anyone else?

Nice.

It's about you , all about you............"

I am absolutely speechless that you could even say this! Outrageous and unbelievably insensitive.

Do you think, Crunch, that the resistance among health care professionals to getting the vaccine is exacerbated by the rancorous times in which we live? I mean, I wasn't alive during the McCarthy years but sometimes I wonder if that particular chapter in history is repeating itself. And those who exploit fears and hysteria---are they doing so to protect the people or to advance their own agendas? Just some food for thought---again---perhaps better discussed on a different thread.

The story you shared is heartbreaking. I have made it completely clear to my college-age sons that they are to get the seasonal flu and H1N1 vaccines so they can avoid getting sick if possible. Then again, I'm their mom and that's my job. I think, in the interest of public health, it is imperative to not only vaccinate as many people as possible (because of allergies and objections, it is not possible to vaccinate everyone) and to encourage proper handwashing and infection control techniques. I cannot imagine how anyone would think that teaching appropriate in infection control habits would be an infringement on individual freedom.

While working in health care, I have considered it my professional responsibility to get vaccinated. I don't want to spread anything to my patients and I also do not wish to catch something from them. Having said that, I also believe that if a nurse is sick, he/she should not be at work, so would not hesitate to call in if I thought I had something contagious. However, I have had nursing supervisors argue with me, one in particular who refused to let me stay home because "lots of nurses work when they're sick." Oh-kay! And, we're supposed to be concerned about our patients' welfare?

I know there are efforts being made to educate the public to stay home when sick. Sometimes it can't be helped, but good grief, have a little common sense. Don't go to work when you have a fever. Stay home when you have symptoms of the flu. What upsets me about the case of the 14-year-old was that the flu was probably contracted at school, maybe at the mall, because someone either was sick and didn't realize it---which happens---or someone was sick and went out into world anyway. (But then, do we quarantine people? I don't know. My sons have said at their colleges anyone with the flu will be quarantined for a week, so they're both getting vaccinated as soon as they can.)

I guess I think that if health care institutions weren't so anal about direct care staff calling in sick, there might be fewer health care workers who work when they're ill and at least they won't be exposing their patients to their sickness. Maybe instead of making flu vaccines mandatory they should offer bonuses (say, an extra day of PTO?) for those who are vaccinated; those who are not and get sick can stay home and not get written up or otherwise disciplined for "excessive absences." But then that's a problem, too. Is it completely fair to those who get vaccinated to have to work extra during a pandemic because some refuse to get vaccinated?

There are no easy answers to this. I think no matter what we do, someone, in some way, is going to lose. Or think they've lost.

But I would be heartbroken if it had been my son who died an unnecessary and preventable death. And I would be heartbroken and angry if I were in your shoes.

I cannot blame Crunch at all for feeling outraged at the senseless death of a teenager from H1N1. The comments quoted may seem insensitive to those who don't agree that the vaccine should be mandatory but they clearly come from the heart of a very caring, compassionate nurse.

Sorry, my only intention was to question your what appeared to be emphatic No-No.

"Based on what we currently know about influenza, well-fitted N95 respirators offer health care workers the best protection against inhalation of viral particles," said Kenneth Shine, chair of the committee that wrote the report, in an IOM news release. "

This came right out of the IOM page.

The reality is that we don't realy know, and that it's not a magical shield. When you look into masks though and how they work, the normal surgial masks weren't designed to protect anyone from inhaling small particles, the N95's were. So it'a a theoretical concept. But it's a "high probabilty" benifit was the way I saw one ID site rate it.

Now as to the origional post, the H1N1 isn't really a NEW vaccine in one sense. the base is one that has been used to decades as well as the production method. It's just a new virus, and in one sense it's easier and safer than the the standard flu vaccine because they already know the virus and don't have to guess. That's why it's production time is shorter, bot because they are inventing something new. Another reason it's happening so fast is the primary manufactures already had the system up and running to produce the normal annual flu vaccine.

Oops forgot to post a link

http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/guideline...on_control.htm

http://www2a.cdc.gov/phlp/docs/Isola...Order%20v3.pdf

Document for "isolation".

My opinion is that we as health care workers should get the vaccine as we are not nessaceraly protecting ourselves but the people we are careing for, the ones that are immunocompromised, the kids, the new mothers and there babies. we can get sick from our kids that go to school etc. or the women I saw at the market the other day who coughed into her hands wiped it on her shirt and then proceeded to pick up frozen cookie dough rolls and then put it back on the shelf ughhh!! then she put her hands on the handle of the cart and off she went on to infect something else! Please get your shot and protect my family from your selfishness

My school is requiring us to get shots in order to go to clinicals. But if you refuse, the hospital requires that we wear masks until we leave the premise!!!!!!!! Needless to say everyone is getting that shot!!!

Making this mandatory is strictly profit driving political lobbying.

...and the herds will follow.