‘Flu jab in breach of our rights’

A TRADE union has claimed that introducing mandatory flu jabs for health workers would violate their human rights.

A spokesman for Siptu, which represents healthcare workers, also said one of the reasons some hospital staff do not take the vaccine is a fear of needles.

TRADE unionists have opposed calls to bring in mandatory flu vaccines for health workers, arguing that such a move would violate their human rights.

And Siptu said one of the reasons some hospital staff don’t get the vaccine is a fear of needles.

Responding to questions from the Irish Daily Mail on Monday, Health Minister Simon Harris said he would give ‘very serious consideration’ to calls from Ireland’s leading infections expert to make the flu jab compulsory for health workers.

In an interview with the Mail, Dr Cillian De Gascun, director of the national virus reference laboratory, said six in ten healthcare workers are not getting the vaccine, and resources are being wasted in trying to increase uptake.

Dr De Gascun said it’s a patient safety issue and should be made mandatory.

But yesterday, Siptu’s health division organiser, Paul Bell, said that would be regressive. ‘We believe it’s a violation of human rights if you force anybody to take a vaccination,’ he told Pat Kenny on Newstalk.

Mr Bell said one of the reasons staff don’t get the jab is a fear of needles.

‘There’s a number of reasons why people don’t take vaccinations – firstly people don’t take them because they believe they don’t work.

‘They may not take them because they are afraid of needle sticks, they may not take them because they believe it gives them the flu,’ he said.

‘If the minister approaches this on the basis of enforcing a regime of mandatory vaccination take-up, I’m afraid that’s actually going to fail and it would be regressive.’

He suggested that introducing mandatory vaccines for health workers could lead to wider implications for the public: ‘At the end of the day, people cannot be forced to have a vaccination if they fear taking an injection. I think that would be most regressive. And then, also, where would we stop? Would we then have the Minister for Health saying everybody in the general public must present themselves for vaccinations of any kind, be it for flu or anything else?’

Retail and transport workers are as vulnerable to influenza as healthcare workers, Mr Bell claimed adding: ‘There’s no research that says health workers are out of work because of flu and that it’s any higher than anywhere else.’

The IMO, which represents doctors, said it ‘supports all initiatives to encourage the uptake of the vaccine on a voluntary basis.’

As our health service continues to battle epidemic levels of flu activity, 541 patients were made to wait on trolleys for a bed yesterday, up by 35 from the previous day.

The INMO’s trolley count now includes data from the children’s hospitals. In Temple Street, eight children were on trolleys, while Crumlin had five children on trolleys.