Are we covered to give Employee H1N1 Shots???

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Good Morning Everyone! We have Finals this week and release students early Thursday and Friday. We had a Nurse Meeting with a guy who oversees emergency operations and drills yesterday. He just told the RNs and Aides that this Thursday we will be giving h1n1 flu shots to people in the community from ages 2 to 49. We lost our head nurse manager about 3 years ago and we don't have a doctor to give us back-up or standing orders this year. Several nurses were concerned about liabilty and emergency equipment not available at the site. The fire dept will be there and a month ago when had the flu clinic, we only monitored people. Many of the nurses want to protect the licenses from possible incidents that happen. What are your thoughts on this?

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Specializes in School Nursing.

If there are not protocols or standing orders, there is no way I would give a vaccine. It is a medicine, and giving it without orders is not within my scope of practice. This is very shaky ground, especially with the misunderstandings and fear of the H1N1 vaccine. If someone has a reaction or gets sick, related or not to the vaccine, they are going to come back on YOU!

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Specializes in School Nursing.

my school district gave them to any "student" who's parents approved it. the school nurse's gave the shots along with the local health district. i would be very leary of having to give the shots to the community . whole different ball game as far as i can see. i would not want to be forced into doing that.

praiser :heartbeat

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

I would check with your public health department. You may be covered as a state employee under special mass vaccination type rules. They would be the ones to know those guidelines.

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Well, after a quick nurse meeting yesterday, the day before the mass vacinations, they decided to call it off. This volunteer board doc pushing for this who wouldn't write standing orders for the year, had went online and ran off "protocols and standing orders" at the last minute. But in fine print the nurses couldn't agree to things like, notifying each person's primary doc in the event of an reaction. I also brought along an article of a mishap at school with a nurse giving a girl with sz hx a shot without parental consent and how things got nasty fast. I suggested they have the health dept. give them or donate leftovers to the health dept instead of opening the school and nurses to liability probs. I told them I hadn't given toddlers shots in years and I weren't about to start learning in a sue happy world. They had ordered 1000 awhile back and had used 300 last month with fire dept. Thanks for your input. :heartbeat:lol2::yeah:

http://www.nurses-forum.com/blog/210/school-nurses-give-swine-flu-shot-without-consent-child-sent-to-hospital/

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