i'm a recent graduate and got my first job as a prn flu shot nurse. anyone involved with flu shots this year is probably aware of the high public turnout and the issues with low supplies, but has anyone been involved with healthcare worker vaccination?
i have and, quite frankly, i'm disgusted!
nurses and other educated medical professionals are declining to be vaccinated and most of them really have no good excuse for putting their patients at risk. at a time when people are standing outside clinics before sunrise for the chance to get an h1n1 vaccination, i find myself sitting in a hospital (and more recently taking the vaccine to the actual units) with a large amount of h1n1 flumist and no one will take it!
in case you haven’t had a chance to look into it, the flumist is a live attenuated influenza virus (laiv). it is only approved for use in healthy people ages 2 - 49 years. no pregnant women, no asthmatics, no diabetics, and no one who is taking anything that suppresses their immune system.
in short: none of the people at highest risk for influenza complications.
so why then does a healthy 30 year old mother in a critical care unit or emergency dept. decline? why does the 22 year old perfectly healthy phlebotomist that visits hundreds of patients each day decline?
the most common thing i hear from people when i roll my cart onto the unit? "i'll wait for the injectible"
that is, except for the > 50 crowd who almost all seem to want the vaccine but can't get the nasal. from them i usually hear "oh i see how it is, over 50 and left to die!" =)
i get the fears about it being a live attenuated virus, but i would expect these fears from the general public and not other nurses or healthcare professionals! i have the information from the cdc, i've educated myself on the various clinical studies and results and i share this with the employees and they still insist on waiting for the injectible.
what do you all think? should these people even be allowed to have the injectible when they are otherwise good candidates for the much more widely available, but also more restrictive, nasal vaccine?
i say, save the injections for those that *really* need it and can't have anything else. not the paranoid and uninformed.
Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care, Cardiac, EMS.
Again, I was probably too hasty in how I presented the topic and that leaves it open to misinterpretation.
My issue here is not with people who refuse vaccinations.
My issue is with nurses and others who want to get vaccinated for h1n1 insisting on consuming only the most limited of resources. And they appear to be doing so for no reason other than, what I consider to be, conveniance.
And several of us nurses - I am an RN - have in fact, presented reasoned and rational arguments in favor of taking the killed vaccine over the attenuated virus. I did not "latch on to" your poorly chosen wording and dismiss the rest of your post - I in fact addressed the issue you brought up. I then pointed out that you did so in an insulting and dismissive fashion.
You continue to insist that nurses who choose the killed vaccine - the "shot" - over the attenuated vaccine - the nasal spray - are doing so for emotional, irrational reasons, for "convenience". You accuse people of failing to read your topic. Yet I think it is you who are not reading the replies.
I've told you - and so have others - why we would refuse the LAIV, and it has little to do with convenience. I don't refuse other vaccines - but I will not willingly put live virii into my body, or my children's bodies if I can avoid it. I personally find it ethically questionable to put them into patients' bodies. I'm actively campaigning for an alternative to the MMR vaccine - but that doesn't mean that I and my family are not vaccinated. It's neither emotionalism nor intellectual laziness - it's a research-based decision.
And that's enough of this deceased equine thrashing from me.
Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care, Cardiac, EMS.
Haha, you'd think that would make it better for those healthcare workers who are afraid of needles!
It may be hard to think of it like this, but less than a death in a million due to a vaccine reaction is immensely preferable to thousands of deaths per million from the disease.
I make sure to go through any contraindications and ask for questions before administering vaccine even to someone who absolutely wants it. Because you know what? that 1 death in a million might be better than thousands but you still try to rule it out at every possible chance.
Until it's your child. Until you find out that there was a killed vaccine that was available and safer, but someone decided it was more economically feasible to determine that you/your family should take the "acceptable risk."
Remember that we deal with people, not just facts, figures, and statistics on paper.
until it's your child. until you find out that there was a killed vaccine that was available and safer, but someone decided it was more economically feasible to determine that you/your family should take the "acceptable risk."
remember that we deal with people, not just facts, figures, and statistics on paper.
i know that we deal with people and not just facts and figures.
this is mainly why i was driven to even post (which won't be happening again soon)
any seasonal flu clinic i go to i get hundreds of questions from anxious parents asking when we will give out the h1n1 vaccine.
what do i tell them? we do, in fact, have over 6,000 doses of h1n1 sitting in a fridge reserved for healthcare providers who are holding out. i'm sorry mam, your kid might end up in a picu because resources are being tied up like this rather than getting to the people most at risk.
i put myself in her shoes and see how rediculous it is that i am twiddling my thumbs trying to get healthcare workers vaccinated with the alloted vaccine. meanwhile the public is driving from doctor's office to doctor's office trying to find it.
let me put it this way:
someone is at a pizza party.
there are 10 pizzas with meat, and 1 that is cheese only.
of course, this is a stupid way to hold a pizza party because there are a lot of vegetarians there.
this person knows damn well there are vegetarians at the party but they insist on holding off on the meat and eating the whole cheese pizza themselves.
because, you know, that meat has more cholesterol in it.
I was incredibly ill for 2 days after receiving the LAIV as was a friend of mine. We both had debilitating migraine headaches along with migraine complications like nausea and vomiting. You couldn't pay me to take the H1N1 LAIV again.
I see your argument in getting those refused vaccinations to those who want them, but no one should be forced to take it.
i'm a recent graduate and got my first job as a prn flu shot nurse. anyone involved with flu shots this year is probably aware of the high public turnout and the issues with low supplies, but has anyone been involved with healthcare worker vaccination?
i have and, quite frankly, i'm disgusted!
nurses and other educated medical professionals are declining to be vaccinated and most of them really have no good excuse for putting their patients at risk. at a time when people are standing outside clinics before sunrise for the chance to get an h1n1 vaccination, i find myself sitting in a hospital (and more recently taking the vaccine to the actual units) with a large amount of h1n1 flumist and no one will take it!
in case you haven’t had a chance to look into it, the flumist is a live attenuated influenza virus (laiv). it is only approved for use in healthy people ages 2 - 49 years. no pregnant women, no asthmatics, no diabetics, and no one who is taking anything that suppresses their immune system.
in short: none of the people at highest risk for influenza complications.
so why then does a healthy 30 year old mother in a critical care unit or emergency dept. decline? why does the 22 year old perfectly healthy phlebotomist that visits hundreds of patients each day decline?
the most common thing i hear from people when i roll my cart onto the unit? "i'll wait for the injectible"
that is, except for the > 50 crowd who almost all seem to want the vaccine but can't get the nasal. from them i usually hear "oh i see how it is, over 50 and left to die!" =)
i get the fears about it being a live attenuated virus, but i would expect these fears from the general public and not other nurses or healthcare professionals! i have the information from the cdc, i've educated myself on the various clinical studies and results and i share this with the employees and they still insist on waiting for the injectible.
what do you all think? should these people even be allowed to have the injectible when they are otherwise good candidates for the much more widely available, but also more restrictive, nasal vaccine?
i say, save the injections for those that *really* need it and can't have anything else. not the paranoid and uninformed.
as you gain experience, you'll learn that vaccinations is a very personal choice.
vaccinations are not, nor have ever been, 100% effective....they are a good tool to prevent infection, but they are not an iron-clad guarantee that you will not get sick.
personal hygiene and the area you work in has a substantial impact on how much exposure you can have. i work in the nicu....i am not around infectious disease. when a baby is born to a mom with the flu the baby is put under droplet precautions...this protect me and my other patients.
in our unit, we do not put infants against our unforms, we gown up, and we never touch a baby for any reason without gloves on and we change them often.
even though the hospital does not require it, those of us who have allergies that are "getting nasal" are choosing to wear masks during these times because you never know when you could be in the early stages of becoming ill with the flu vs just another allergy attack or minor cold.
i don't take the annual flu vaccine and won't until i am much older. i have got the flu once in my life and that was about 15 years ago. the flu vaccination that is given is an educated guess on the strain that the cdc feels will be the most predominant for that flu season.
it is not a guarantee and i sure hope you are not telling the public that it is. you still need to take the same precautions.
financial reasons and liability is another reason why i do not choose to take either the h1n1 or the annual flu vaccine.
h1n1 has flat out, not been tested to my satisfaction. period. you cannot put a gun to my head and get me to take a vaccine or any other medication that has not been adequately tested...and if it was required for my job and it meant losing my job over it i would have quit. at work, they told us that if we became ill from this new vaccine that workmans comp would not cover us.
same thing with the flu vaccine. while i 100% believe that the flu vaccine does not give you the flu, i do believe that for some, it does lower your immune system and you can be more subject to getting something else. i always got sick within 2 weeks of the flu vaccine...always. always...my employer would not pay me if i got sick, so therefore, i didn't take the shot. that is the reason that i stopped taking it to start with.
some of us, like myself, also have auto-immune disorders and have been advised not to take the h1n1 by our specialists treating our conditions...i am protected by hipaa and i don't feel that i have to explain anything to my employer, bring a doctor's note, or anything else.
be careful on how you judge others.....i never asked any of my co-workers if they were vaccinated or not. because that is a personal decision and isn't any of my business.
I was incredibly ill for 2 days after receiving the LAIV as was a friend of mine. We both had debilitating migraine headaches along with migraine complications like nausea and vomiting. You couldn't pay me to take the H1N1 LAIV again.
I see your argument in getting those refused vaccinations to those who want them, but no one should be forced to take it.
Well I finally got my H1N1 LAIV today. So I will let you all know if any ill comes of it.
Originially it was only for the tier 1 employees but so few got it they finally told us we could get it ourselves last week. I'd been pretty much on my own so I had no chance to get it myself. I finally just had a nurse check off my form and got it.
Indeed. I find it funny that people are complaining when there's a nurse coming around with either the mist or the shot, offering it to them; where I'm at there is no shot available yet. However, if I want to drive a couple of hours I can go stand in line and get one. It is entirely possible that I will be exposed to the real thing (probably have been) before the injectable becomes available my way.
And I would consider the flumist, except that I'm asthmatic so umm, no.
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PedsDrNurseTheo, ADN, BSN, MSN, DNP, RN, EMT-P, NP
150 Posts
And several of us nurses - I am an RN - have in fact, presented reasoned and rational arguments in favor of taking the killed vaccine over the attenuated virus. I did not "latch on to" your poorly chosen wording and dismiss the rest of your post - I in fact addressed the issue you brought up. I then pointed out that you did so in an insulting and dismissive fashion.
You continue to insist that nurses who choose the killed vaccine - the "shot" - over the attenuated vaccine - the nasal spray - are doing so for emotional, irrational reasons, for "convenience". You accuse people of failing to read your topic. Yet I think it is you who are not reading the replies.
I've told you - and so have others - why we would refuse the LAIV, and it has little to do with convenience. I don't refuse other vaccines - but I will not willingly put live virii into my body, or my children's bodies if I can avoid it. I personally find it ethically questionable to put them into patients' bodies. I'm actively campaigning for an alternative to the MMR vaccine - but that doesn't mean that I and my family are not vaccinated. It's neither emotionalism nor intellectual laziness - it's a research-based decision.
And that's enough of this deceased equine thrashing from me.