Fighting mandate regarding flu vaccines

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CuriousMe

2,642 Posts

read the comments posted on the bottom by people in NY in response to the mandate of vaccines being dropped.

"This is NOT a legal victory and one more example of health care workers putting themselves before their patients. Guess they ARE in it for the money..."

"healthcare workers who do not wish to be vaccinated can wear big red armbands stating they have refused the flu vaccine."

"They should be fired. They are obviously out-of-touch with conventional and acceptable preventative medical treatment and I wouldn't want to be near any facility that employed such irresponsible health care "professionals". "

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/judge-halts-mandatory-flu-vaccines-for-health-care-workers/?hp

sorry, i am a human being first and a nurse second.

I'm sorry your feelings are hurt...but how is it that you're surprised that folks are not happy with the fact their loved ones, when they're at their most vulnerable, may have an additional and preventable risk to be concerned about from the very folks who are supposed to be taking care of them?

Did you expect folks to stand up and cheer?

canoehead, BSN, RN

6,890 Posts

Specializes in ER.

here are my thoughts.

so, to folks who work in clinical areas and aren't planning on getting the h1n1 (or are fighting a mandate). i'm curious (truly, i don't understand and would love to hear different perspectives) if you've received the other vaccinations that are generally required for nursing school (and work in an acute care facility)?i am not willing to take any drug that hasn't been on the market for at least five years, the flu vaccine gets reinvented every year, and the time from decision of what to include and actual production doesn't allow for testing. it's a huge profit maker, and the companies don't need to worry about liability. that's a great reason to cut a few corners here and there. i've seen how profit motivated drug companies are, flu vaccine is a disaster just waiting to happen. maybe not this year, but i'm not putting myself in the line of fire.

where does the healthy, and educated healthcare professional's individual rights to decide about a vaccine end and the possible medically fragile, patients rights to receive care from someone who has taken all reasonable precautions to keep them safe begin?it begins and ends right at the level of my epithelial cells. i'll wear the mask, i'll wash my hands, but russian roulette wasn't in the contract i signed.

i know many disagree with my opinion, but we have to respect each other. if someone doesn't want me as a nurse because i didn't get the vaccine i am ok with that. no offense taken at all. i would like them to know it wasn't a decision made lightly, and not knee jerk. i seriously think it is a dangerous choice. i can also understand why a chronically ill person, or family member would choose otherwise, and i wish them well.

canoehead, BSN, RN

6,890 Posts

Specializes in ER.
"i seriously don't get this type of thought process "

that's ok - i don't get yours either. you apparently are comfortable with being inpatient in a facility where none of the staff have been vaccinated against smallpox, chickenpox, hepatitus, pertussis, whooping cough, measles, mumps, rubella or polio.

they're mandated too, you know.

these have all been on the market for years. yes, i would get any one of them.

Pat_Pat RN

472 Posts

Specializes in ER, Med/Surg.
i wish you all the luck in your decisions, blessed.

---i am more worried about the patient's visitors who do not wash their hands, do not follow precautions when posted, cough, sneeze and let their children crawl on the floors in the patient's rooms than i am about me transmitting it to someone. sure, you can blame the nurse who wasn't vaccinated... but aren't you at the same risk if you are immunocompromised and walking around walmart? or picking your kids up from day care? there are immunocompromised people everywhere, not just in hospital beds!

the only vaccine available now is the live vaccine and because i am pregnant i cannot have it. i wore a mask at work (or my scarlet letter, rather) until my OB took me out of work and i will probably have to continue to wear one when i return from leave. my boyfriend and my mom (both nurses) also not taking the live vaccine for fear that it can shed in their skin and they can pass it to me and baby. they are both also wearing a mask.... and not making anyone sick because of their choices.

i think the biggest part of prevention is people need to STAY HOME WHEN THEY'RE SICK. not just us, everyone. don't go out and snot all over the cart at publix. don't go to work. don't send your kids to school. it might make a difference.

AMEN!!!!!

I don't get any shots that I don't HAVE to get in order to stay employed.

wowza

283 Posts

Frankly, I think that any healthcare worker who doesnt get vaccinated, especially doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists, is very irresponsible and should not be allowed to work in a hospital during the flu season.

A few points:

- The efficacy of the vaccine has already been studied. It is effective

- This vaccine was created just like every other yearly flu vaccine. It is nothing new

- You shed the virus well before you see any symptoms. So if you are unvaccinated you will infect people w/o even knowing it.

- This flu virus is much more deadly to apparently healthy people

I am fine with health care providers not getting vaccinated. It is their perogative. However, they should not be allowed to work during the flu season.

Making people get vaccinated is the same idea as making health care workers get tested for TB every year. It not only protects you but protects everyone else around you. Stop being selfish and get vaccinated.

Specializes in IMCU.
And how, exactly, would that help? You would still have had the vaccine. You would be better off getting a waiver for the vaccine if you really don't want it. Not wanting it because the school tells you to get it, however, is the equivalent of refusing to do something your mother tells you to do, just because she told you.

Thanks for this because I was trying to express this same idea the other day and couldn't think of an equivalent. This is exactly perfect.

Specializes in IMCU.
Well, that certainly settles it. Every single health care worker in this country should be vaccinated because your husband is a chronic lung patient and it would be a huge measure of reassurance for you. Does that actually make sense to you? I fail to understand this type of mentality. The whole world does not revolve around you and your husband. No offense - it sure as heck doesn't revolve around me and mine either, but I seriously don't get this type of thought process - "well, it benefits me so let's go for it". How incredibly self-centered.

I hardly find your post to be a compelling reason for forced vaccinations. Flame away, but I would honestly rather have a few people die than for everyone in this country to lose their rights. RuRnurse makes very good points in his/her post - this is a slippery slope we are traveling down here.

Wow!

I suspect the that she used her husband as an example. I think her "right" to peace of mind as well as that of protecting her husband's health is pretty bloody important.

As someone else said...I suspect you have had your MMR, Hep B vax etc.

Lacie, BSN, RN

1,037 Posts

Specializes in jack of all trades.

I have never been told I was required to take the Hep B, nor TB test to keep my job, I have always signed a waiver #1 and chose to get a CXR yearly instead. I guess we should require all dialysis patients get them rather than making it an option to them on a consent form since they expose us and other pts right on a 3x's a week basis for most likely the remainder of thier life? They also can refuse vaccinations. I get blood work to show I am HbAg negative on a yearly basis. MMR well parents made that decision when I was very young, I didnt. I feel I have that choice and it shouldnt be made for me. I am entitled to make an "informed" decision like anyone else. I hear people posting that we should wear arm bands to show we havent been vaccinated? Wow!!

I have never been told I was required to take the Hep B, nor TB test to keep my job, I have always signed a waiver #1 and chose to get a CXR yearly instead. I guess we should require all dialysis patients get them rather than making it an option to them on a consent form since they expose us and other pts right on a 3x's a week basis for most likely the remainder of thier life? They also can refuse vaccinations. I get blood work to show I am HbAg negative on a yearly basis. MMR well parents made that decision when I was very young, I didnt. I feel I have that choice and it shouldnt be made for me. I am entitled to make an "informed" decision like anyone else. I hear people posting that we should wear arm bands to show we havent been vaccinated? Wow!!

I was required to have HepB for nursing school and get a Mantoux annually. I did not have the MMR because I am too old - children were still dying from measles and mumps when I was little. Diptheria was a generation away and I had friends who wore braces from having contracted polio.

I find it difficult to fathom that there are some health care workers who do not see the difference between the population with which they will be in contact and that of the non-HCW.

We CHOSE to care for others. We CHOSE to be responsible for the health and welfare of vulnerable people. We CHOSE to take an active role in their health education. We CHOSE professions based on science and empirical evidence, not woo and fear and distrust.

CuriousMe

2,642 Posts

I have never been told I was required to take the Hep B, nor TB test to keep my job, I have always signed a waiver #1 and chose to get a CXR yearly instead. I guess we should require all dialysis patients get them rather than making it an option to them on a consent form since they expose us and other pts right on a 3x's a week basis for most likely the remainder of thier life? They also can refuse vaccinations. I get blood work to show I am HbAg negative on a yearly basis. MMR well parents made that decision when I was very young, I didnt. I feel I have that choice and it shouldnt be made for me. I am entitled to make an "informed" decision like anyone else. I hear people posting that we should wear arm bands to show we havent been vaccinated? Wow!!

Two points:

No, the dialysis patients, are the patients, they don't have to get vaccinated to protect the health care professionals, they have no responsibility to protect you, that's completely backwards.....that would be like the firefighters expecting you to run into the burning building to save them....doesn't work that way.

And no one is saying that health care workers shouldn't have a choice about whether they should be vaccinated (no one's saying you should be held down and vaccinated).

They're just wondering whether it's wise or safe for an un-vaccinated health care worker to work clinically if they're not vaccinated. Whether potentially introducing a preventable risk to patients who are already medically compromised is in the patient's best interest. The CDC has shown that wearing a mask is just not that effective and a person with the virus can start shedding it a day or so before showing symptoms....so, how does an un-vaccnated health care worker protect their patients?

lamazeteacher

2,170 Posts

Specializes in OB, HH, ADMIN, IC, ED, QI.

Most clinics that administer vaccines do present information regarding possible side effects and known complications regarding the vaccine to be given/offered, which those taking it must sign. At doctors' offices, there are also copies of that information. This is the age of "informed consent".

That said, schools do have the right, given expert opinion regarding it, to require students to have immunizations, as classes are held in closed rooms that recirculate the air everyone breathes in them. Occasionally exceptions are made due to specific health history.

I remember wailing and sobbing as a five year old, when my class went for chest x-rays, in 1944. The principal held me on his lap (probably couldn't do that now) and softly explained why it was necessary. That helped me deal with that huge machine there that seemed (and was) so ominous. It was dangerous, but unknown those days, that exposure to the radiation could have bad effects, and I can only imagine the rads shed on all of us, with no lead lined room to protect anyone - we all were in the same big room with the radiology tech and our teachers, as each child received his/her dose of radiation, at least 100 times.

It's circumstances such as those that make each generation a little more wary when confronted with a new, evil appearing procedure. Since none of us could have been pregnant, although some of the teachers could have been - no known teratogenic result occurred (that we know about). However I still wonder.......

That principal's kindness gave me perspective with which I've benefited my entire life. I'm grateful to him for his caring acceptance of my earlier mode of behavior. I've become more thoughtful about others' resistance to being made to do something they dread (although that hasn't been demonstrated by me, so far on this thread), and I still consider the odds before blindly lining up to get vaccinated.

Lois

flightnurse2b, LPN

1 Article; 1,496 Posts

Specializes in EMS, ER, GI, PCU/Telemetry.
Two points:

No, the dialysis patients, are the patients, they don't have to get vaccinated to protect the health care professionals, they have no responsibility to protect you, that's completely backwards.....that would be like the firefighters expecting you to run into the burning building to save them....doesn't work that way.

And no one is saying that health care workers shouldn't have a choice about whether they should be vaccinated (no one's saying you should be held down and vaccinated).

They're just wondering whether it's wise or safe for an un-vaccinated health care worker to work clinically if they're not vaccinated. Whether potentially introducing a preventable risk to patients who are already medically compromised is in the patient's best interest. The CDC has shown that wearing a mask is just not that effective and a person with the virus can start shedding it a day or so before showing symptoms....so, how does an un-vaccnated health care worker protect their patients?

you make excellent points.

working in a non-clinical area was not offered to anyone at my hospital. they actually have run out of the vaccine for the nursing staff, anyways, and don't know when they will get more. i actually offered to work discharge, telephone triage, monitor tech, medical records when i was still working and was told by my director there was "no reason" why i shouldn't care for a patient with the swine flu while pregnant. i was actually wearing the mask before it was mandated.

i understand that there has been extra clinical trial done on pregnant woman for this vaccine, one of them was done at the hospital in NC that i used to work for.... but who is to say how it will affect the babies if they have not been born yet... it may take years.... i am not willing to take the vaccine for this reason, after asking my OB and multiple other physicians their opinions. would you be willing, if you were pregnant, to take this vaccine?

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