But…..I will get it.  I get the flu vaccination every year.  Why?  I am not in a high risk age group.  I do not have a chronic medical condition.  But, I do work with highly vulnerable patient populations, pregnant women and sick neonates.  Actually all health care workers and staff in hospitals work with high risk populations.  All medical workers should be vaccinated against the seasonal flu and the H1N1 virus.   The last thing we want to do is infect our vulnerable patients with the flu, when we could have prevented it.   But many health care professionals, like the rest of the population, do not get vaccinated.  I hear many excuses from my nurse peers on why they do not get the vaccination.  “It will make me sick.”  “One year I caught the flu from the vaccination.”  “I hate needles.” I would expect to hear these lame excuses from lay people (sorry for calling you lame, people) but not from my fellow nurses.  A recent study showed that less than half of health care workers in Japan choose to be vaccinated for the flu.  This mimics attitudes of American health care workers.  The World Health Organization recommends that all health care workers become vaccinated against the flu and the H1N1 virus.  In the United States the first doses of the flu vaccine is saved for health care workers.  Yet still, almost half of these workers will choose not to become vaccinated.  Our choices not to vaccinate puts thousands of vulnerable patients who have no choice, at risk.

Some hospitals across the country are taking the choice of vaccination away from health care workers.  Receiving the flu vaccine will be mandatory and a condition of employment.  Just like other vaccinations and tests that are mandatory for health care workers ( MMR, Varicella, TB, Hepatitis, etc), why shouldn’t the flu vaccine also be mandatory?  Some argue that it violates their civil liberties to mandate a vaccination.  How can you force someone to get a shot in the arm?  Well, no one is forcing you.  You choose to be a health care professional and to work in a hospital.  You choose to work with the sick and vulnerable.  You are getting paid by an organization to do this work, an organization that is responsible for the health and well being of it’s staff and it’s patients.  If you choose not to abide by their requirements which include flu vaccinations, it is your choice not to work there.  Period

RR