Take your medicine on low take-up of flu jabs, Minister... and make your health staff take theirs too

THE Health Service Executive has decided it will not make it compulsory for its staff – doctors, nurses, social workers, clerical workers and other administrators – to be injected with the vaccine available to counteract influenza. That is a policy matter for the Department of Health to decide, it has stated. Over to you, Minister.

Presumably if Health Minister Simon Harris belatedly gets the finger out and issues the mandate then the HSE will follow his will with diligence and ensure that all its staff takes its medicine. It would be extraordinary if it didn’t, but then many might argue that it is also remarkable that the HSE’s existing efforts to persuade staff to avail of the vaccine to date – with take-up rates running well short of a desultory 40% – have been so unsuccessful.

Cowardice

That the HSE has decided to pass the buck on this decision might strike some as it washing its hands of responsibility – a cowardice, an abrogation of duty. After all, its staff interact with the public on a daily basis.

Settings such as hospitals and old-age and care homes are where flu is more likely to arrive and spread. Already ill people are highly vulnerable to the potentially fatal effects of the flu. Furthermore, staff who fall foul of the sickness will have to take time off work, leaving the rest of the system potentially understaffed to deal with an increased number of patients with conditions associated with, or worsened by, the flu. Catch-22 as well as catch-the-flu, so to speak.

To others, however, the HSE’s decision might seem to be an entirely pragmatic, logical and understandable one: there has been a kickback among staff about taking the vaccine so why risk an industrial dispute of some kind or other deterioration in relationships between management and staff by trying to force it on them? Why make a bad situation potentially worse?

There would appear to be two main reasons a majority of HSE staff have shunned the opportunity to get the anti-flu vaccine. One is time, the other is effectiveness.

The time argument is an interesting one. I’ve heard that they can’t leave their posts to go whatever distance it may be to find the person administering the vaccine. If they go during break time, the queues are so long they might not be able to get back to their jobs on time. And, as far as they are concerned, why should they get the jab in their own time when they have homes to get to and other things to do?

The second is worrying. Health professionals – only a minority it is to be hoped – are doubting the effectiveness of vaccines. It is true that the vaccine delivered before Christmas is not 100% effective against the strain it is designed to combat. But it was never claimed to provide immunity. It improved the chances of people not getting the flu, with the knockon benefits of spreading less. Nor was it designed to deal with the second strain of the flu that has arrived, unexpectedly. But I’ve received communications from nurses to my radio show saying they will not allow themselves to be injected with vaccines they say don’t work.

Sweeteners

Worse, I’ve received texts to The Last Word from people claiming to be HSE workers – and why would they claim to be when they’re not? – saying that they’ve never had the flu and are not going to have it ‘introduced’ to their bodies via a vaccine.

It is likely that these people have been the loudest in lobbying their trade unions, who have reacted accordingly. It was little surprise so that spokespeople from two unions – Siptu and the INMO – yesterday said that they would oppose mandatory vaccination.

Bizarrely, the Siptu representative asked a radio show: ‘Where would it stop? With public transport workers or retailers?’ Yes, those workers come into contact with the public but he should get a grip of himself: we’re talking about health workers who are supposed to help people overcome illness – not add to it. So how does the HSE persuade them to get the jab? It can’t, as a form of punishment to those who don’t get vaccinated, dock from the wages of its employees when it is not an official requirement of the job to have the vaccination. It seems appealing to their logic hasn’t work.

There have been suggestions that they should try sweeteners – literally. In other countries it has been known to run raffles for boxes of chocolates to persuade health workers to get their necessary jab. Another idea has been to put up larger prizes such as iPads as an incentive. You’d nearly fear that some administrators would object on the basis that this might be a backdoor method to persuade them to use new technology in the workplace instead of their trusty printed paper forms.

Honest

It’s a pity some people think they know better than the country’s leading infections expert who was featured on the front page of this newspaper on Monday.

Dr Cillian De Gascun, the director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, emphasised that the well-being of patients should be the priority for anyone working in the health system. ‘I think the message we have to get out there is: we’re not vaccinating healthcare workers for their own benefit – although they will benefit themselves – it’s for their patients. So that’s really the priority. It’s a patient safety issue here,’ he said.

Dr De Gascun was honest enough not to claim the vaccine always works, but he has scientific evidence and expertise to back up his claim that it is the best measure available to protect against flu spreading widely.

Indeed, he raised an interesting point about what happens if someone dies of flu amid this low vaccination take-up.

Will somebody sue the HSE if a relative dies from a flu that may have been transmitted to them by a HSE healthcare employee? This may be unlikely – as who can prove who passed a particular flu virus to somebody else? – but the prospect of legal action may be enough to prompt HSE action.

Or rather, ministerial action. But that seems unlikely. Simon Harris has been throwing shapes about making it compulsory but, for fear of union opposition, is unlikely to follow through.

But it is interesting to note that it is not too late to get the flu vaccine, even though it takes about ten days for it to provide protection. So we can just plead with health workers: do yourself and the rest of us a favour, act in the national interest and spend that few minutes to take a jab into your arm.