I am an Oncology nurse working for a hospital for more than 13 years. I live in California and there is now a mandate in place that is requiring me to be vaccinated before Sept. 30th or I will be terminated from my job. Not only do I not feel comfortable to receive a EUV that no long term studies have been documented because it is too new and not FDA approved but I have also witnessed friends as well as patients having severe side effects after receiving vaccination.
I am unclear how an employer has the LEGAL RIGHT to ask me personal questions about my religious beliefs or medical information (vaccination status), where are my HIPAA Rights. Employer vaccine mandates are subject to religious accommodation under the Title VII of the Civil rights act. For personal reasons I will be submitting for religious exemption to hopefully prevent me from losing my job.
I'm not sure what the outcome will be but I am planning to seek employment elsewhere in case I do lose my job and likely it won't be in healthcare. I don't know if this will be the end of my nursing career and if it is I feel extremely sad about that.
What happened to the phrase " my body my choice " ?
I will not be forced to do anything to my body that I do not choose.
Through scripture we know that God values our bodies. Our bodies are said to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, and we are called to take care of and honor God's temple. God's words lead use to use our bodies and the gifts He has given us to achieve the will of God.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
10 hours ago, LokelaniRN said:
Nurses aides make very little. Nursing home jobs are not much of an attraction. Therefore, you keep the staff you have.
They can work as a driver for Amazon for more money than as an aide.Some will quit the profession . There are a lot of jobs out there, we are not in a recession type of situation.
Okay. Perhaps the HHS is making a public health policy decision based on PUBLIC HEALTH, not job retention. They realize that unvaccinated people SHOULD NOT BE WORKING WITH VULNERABLE POPULATIONS (yes, I shouted that).
If you're working in a nursing home with patients, and you refuse to be vaccinated, then you're selfish af and shouldn't be working there.
When a vaccine is not FDA approved, and studies have shown it does not prevent spread, why are we firing nurses who refuse the vaccine, the same nurses who worked unvaccinated during the covid pandemic?
I could understand it if the vaccine prevented transmission of the virus, butyou can still transmit even if vaccinated.
This is the new Big Lie. Vaccination reduces transmission. NOTHING is 100% effective-that doesn't mean it isn't incredibly useful and important.
States (or countries) who have high vaccine compliance have reduced levels of infection. States with low vaccine compliance have higher rates of transmission.
Why wouldn't we want REDUCED rates of transmission????
"Some people still die while wearing seatbelts. Therefore, we can conclude that seatbelts don't prevent death..."
It seems like the only advantage of the vaccine at this point is it prevents you from dying.
Here we have another lie. Getting the vaccine reduces DRAMATICALLY the chances of serious illness (and potentially long covid), hospitalization (that stresses our healthcare system), intubation, and death. Oh, it also REDUCES (didn't say prevents entirely) rates of transmission.
And by the way, if the only thing the vaccine did was prevent you from dying, that is still a GREAT thing.
I am an Oncology nurse working for a hospital for more than 13 years. I live in California and there is now a mandate in place that is requiring me to be vaccinated before Sept. 30th or I will be terminated from my job. Not only do I not feel comfortable to receive a EUV that no long term studies have been documented because it is too new and not FDA approved but I have also witnessed friends as well as patients having severe side effects after receiving vaccination.
I am unclear how an employer has the LEGAL RIGHT to ask me personal questions about my religious beliefs or medical information (vaccination status), where are my HIPAA Rights. Employer vaccine mandates are subject to religious accommodation under the Title VII of the Civil rights act. For personal reasons I will be submitting for religious exemption to hopefully prevent me from losing my job.
I'm not sure what the outcome will be but I am planning to seek employment elsewhere in case I do lose my job and likely it won't be in healthcare. I don't know if this will be the end of my nursing career and if it is I feel extremely sad about that.
What happened to the phrase " my body my choice " ?
I will not be forced to do anything to my body that I do not choose.
Through scripture we know that God values our bodies. Our bodies are said to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, and we are called to take care of and honor God's temple. God's words lead use to use our bodies and the gifts He has given us to achieve the will of God.
At the center of nursing lies the patient. Take a look at the situation from a patient centered perspective.
How many vaccines have caused long term ill effects?
How many patients have suffered long ill ill effect from this tech over the last 30 years? (BioNtech has been using this tech for quiet a while to produce biological response modifiers to treat cancer. I'm surprised that you are ignorant of this fact.)
Are your rights more important than those of your patients to be treated in a safe environment where all reason precaution have been take for their protection?
While the debate regarding abortion has raged have you supported patient's rights to be treated confidentially with all medical options offered by their medical providers? Or are you just throwing slogans back in people faces?
Are you more concerned about the vaccine or are you digging your heels in about being force to do something that you don't want to do?
What would Jesus do? Would he get the vaccine so that he could stay and heal the sick, or would he turn his back on them?
Hi Lorraine, what they are mandating you to do may not be in violation of HIPAA law, but it most certainly is in abject violation of The Nuremberg Code (1947). Don't mind those replies you got from naive nurses on this board. Being on the wrong side of history while it repeats itself is like failing an open-book test. Keep strong and stand in your truth.
"1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge or comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment."
If I could underline above I would underline the words 'fraud,' 'deceit,' and 'coercion.' Soon, the way it is going, we may have to consider that word, 'force.'
I am just stating the rationale that you used is healthcare workers should be vaccinated which reduces their risk of hospitalization is flawed. The majority of admissions to a hospital is poor self induced behaviors, obesity being one of them. So fire the obese, smokers who work in healthcare.
I was pro vaccine for healthcare workers until recent studies showed vaccinated people can still spread the virus. Therefore, it makes no sense to me to fire nurses in a shortage situation. Nursing homes are pretty much a horrible place to work in ( I used to work in one going through nursing school). Firing them is only going to push them in a new career, with plentiful jobs out there. It makes more sense to rapid test them prior to a shift.
Still don't get it? Obesity is not a highly contagious respiratory disease and can't be compared to obesity. Where will all these nursing home aides going to go since almost every other employer will insist in vaccination? They will have to go to a situation worst than the one they left. Although I wouldn't put that work down so quickly. Lots of people enjoy working with elderly and aides don't have the responsibilities of an RN.
Still don't get it? Obesity is not a highly contagious respiratory disease and can't be compared to obesity. Where will all these nursing home aides going to go since almost every other employer will insist in vaccination? They will have to go to a situation worst than the one they left. Although I wouldn't put that work down so quickly. Lots of people enjoy working with elderly and aides don't have the responsibilities of an RN.
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you or making the point obesity and COVID are the same. The argument theyre making is strictly about the occupancy of more beds than a facility is equipped to handle, and how people are reacting differently to staffing issues caused by one patient population vs the other.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
10 minutes ago, jive turkey said:
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you or making the point obesity and COVID are the same. The argument theyre making is strictly about the occupancy of more beds than a facility is equipped to handle, and how people are reacting differently to staffing issues caused by one patient population vs the other.
The thread is about termination of unvaccinated employees. There is no vaccination for obesity. It would be nice if we had a vaccine that caused immunity to propaganda and nonsense.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
12 minutes ago, LokelaniRN said:
What a previous poster said was medical staff needed to be vaccinated to prevent their hospitalization. What I said was if that is the case, then a lot of people currently in the hospital are there due to their behaviors, including obesity. They are also taking up hospital space.
I also want to add, I am not an anti vaxxer. I got the Moderna vaccine. What I am saying it is stupid to fire people in the middle of a nursing shortage. A shortage created by hospital administrators prior to covid.
Instead of a knee jerk reaction to firing people, test the unvaccinated prior to each shift. All it takes is a $10 test per person.
What will result in mass firings is that grandma is going to be at worse risk of bedsores, malnutrition due to an even lower staffing level than is the current horrendous staffing level now.
And lets not forget, most nursing home patients are already vaccinated.
So you are owning the rotten logic that brought obesity into a discussion about covid and health workers who refuse to vaccinate against a dangerous VPD?
Instead of knee jerk acceptance of dangerous reasononing and decision making during a pandemic, let's advise the workers of the changing employment requirements and allow them to sort themselves out. Those who aren't willing to take the safe and effective steps to protect themselves, their families or their vulnerable patients should consider another line of work.
Requiring unvaccinated staff to be tested before coming into the building would create a host of staffing problems, if a staff member tests positive at the door, they have to go home and then be taken off the schedule for however many days until they recover -- if they recover -- and then the facility is scrambling at the last minute to get coverage. So there is no way to have consistent staffing. There is also a concern that people can be contagious before they test positive and so could be coming into the building with COVID already.
It really is a choice, and choices have consequences. No one is being imprisoned in a cell without food or water and being dragged to experiments where they are brutalized for no particular reason other than to see what happens.
The nazis were performing organ transplants with no anesthesia, many on children, they were removing limbs and attaching them to other people, they had a whole program around twin children, cutting out body parts and exchanging them, or sewing their extremities together to create conjoined twins. Brain transplants, removing eyeballs and exchanging them with other people, without anesthesia. The goal was not to save lives or advance science, it was just to keep people alive while inflicting horrific suffering to see what would happen, like little kids holding a magnifying glass to bugs because they enjoyed seeing them burst into flame. The only out was death and that came only when the body had been exhausted to the point of no return.
Choice means you can make a choice. But it's not OK to inflict that choice on others without their consent. Patients also have a right to know that they will be safe. They also have a right to make the choice that their caregivers are not going to cause them harm.
Requiring unvaccinated staff to be tested before coming into the building would create a host of staffing problems, if a staff member tests positive at the door, they have to go home and then be taken off the schedule for however many days until they recover
I'm not making a case against vaccination when I say that this would be a potential problem regardless as the vaccinated can still spread. It would make sense to rapid test everybody regardless of the goal is to stop it. The power of quarantine
Tenebrae, BSN, RN
2,021 Posts
You are correct, your body your choice.
However what about the rights of an often severely immune compromised patient group to not contract covid from their health provider.
Why should your choices and rights outweigh the rights of your patients.
If you don't want to get a vaccination fine, don't get one. However be prepared to deal with those consequences.
I personally could never get an abortion. I'm not about to go get a job in my local womens clinic