Would You Accept Swine Flu Vaccine?

Nurses COVID

Published

  1. Would You Take the Swine Flu Vaccine?

    • 89
      Yes
    • 144
      No
    • 48
      Depends

281 members have participated

My facility had a town hall meeting and announced that this year, it will be mandatory for all direct care staff to get the flu shot, and that they expect the swine flu vaccine to be ready this year, around October, and that we would be mandated to take that as well to protect the patients we care for. I am not very comfortable being mandated to take anything...this would be a brand new vaccine. Why should I be the guinea pig? Thoughts?

Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

indigo girl, I do not think you are picking on me. You shared some very valid points and I really, really appreciate it. ((Hugs to you))

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

About the time I decide I want it they probably will not have any available! Very insightful IG - thank you.

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We have just been told that pregnant nurses are not to care for anyone who is "rule out H1N1". Also, a month ago, no tests were coming back from the state as positive for H1N1. Now they ALL are. I think my hospital has lost count/stopped reporting to us the numbers. And it's JULY!

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Specializes in Too many to list.
We have just been told that pregnant nurses are not to care for anyone who is "rule out H1N1". Also, a month ago, no tests were coming back from the state as positive for H1N1. Now they ALL are. I think my hospital has lost count/stopped reporting to us the numbers. And it's JULY!

Kudos to your facility for taking that additional step to protect pregnant staff! This needs to be the norm of all facilities everywhere.

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Here's another problem: We absolutely do NOT have enough private rooms to keep all possible H1N1 patients isolated. We can't even adequately cohort them. So we do so-called spatial isolation, which is a total joke. They usually do not even get placed on droplet precautions until they've been with us a day or two, because when they were admitted, nobody suspected flu. Partially because it is JULY! I just can't even imagine what the fall/winter will be like.

I'm not an alarmist by any stretch of the imagination. But the fact that a hospital may/may not mandate vaccines? Who cares? Let's just grow up and do the right thing regardless of how it might get our hackles up.

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

You make a very good point AC.

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

Thank you to everyone who answered my question in a previous post. Those explanations make sense to me (even though I personally think the public health risk of the pandemic outweighs the risk of the individuals who take the vaccine.)

I don't think you are "crazy" for believing as you do.:wink2:

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. Only 300 some odd people died from swine flu in the US, and they had chronic illnesses (at least this is what I am aware of), anyhow. quote]

Here is a recent tragic newspaper article that shows that even the young, without chronic illnesses, can become victims of this disease.... a brother and sister in Indiana have died of the disease within weeks of each other.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090730/NEWS01/907310366

So very sad.........

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

My goodness...this may be a real, real problem.

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Specializes in Too many to list.

I think that everyone considering the vaccine needs to be aware of this recent death. Yes, it is but one fatality of a HCW out of many working, but with greater numbers of flu patients, the greater the chances of another occurrence. Significantly, this nurse was athletic with no health problems.

It should come as no surprise either that her facility says they don't know if she caught this at work or in the community. I did not know about this case when I posted earlier in this thread so it seemed rather ironic to learn of this death shortly after that. Indeed, I even had a conversation with a friend just yesterday about the possibility of future HCW fatalities. We both felt that this is exactly what any facility would say about the death of a staff member. Sure, she may have caught the virus in the community but where did she spend most of her time?

http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2071046.html

A cancer nurse at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael has died of the H1N1 flu, becoming the first reported health care worker in California killed by the new variant of swine flu.

"We're very concerned that a nurse died," said Jill Furillo of the California Nurses Association, adding that the death underscores the need for strong infection controls to protect nurses and patients.

Mercy San Juan does not know whether the nurse caught the flu on the job or elsewhere, but it has notified all patients who came in contact with her when she might have been infectious, said hospital spokesman Bryan Gardner.

Karen Ann Hays died July 17 of a severe respiratory infection, pneumonia and H1N1, according to her death certificate. She also had methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a staph infection that is resistant to many antibiotics.

Hays, 51, was a triathlete, skydiver and marathon runner...

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Specializes in Cardiac.

Frightening!

That's how it's gonna happen. To the healty ones of us who think we have a 'great' immune system.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

Thanks for sharing this, indigo girl!

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