Calls for f lu jab to be mandatory for healthcare workers
NURSES who work in intensive care, cancer wards and emergency departments could infect patients with a potentially deadly influenza virus, a report by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland has warned.
It has called for the flu jab to be mandatory to prevent infections – a recommendation so far rejected by the Department of Health.
Only a third of healthcare staff volunteered for the influenza vaccine according to HSE statistics released earlier this year – with 70% of staff in long-term care hospitals going unprotected.
The virus can spread quickly through overcrowded hospitals but Phil Ní Shéaghdha, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s general secretary, does not think mandatory vaccinations are necessary.
She said: ‘The HSE as the employer do not think a mandatory programme is necessary. The big problem is that when someone is diagnosed with influenza they should be immediately isolated so they cannot transfer it, but our hospitals are so overcrowded we do not have those facilities. The most frequent chance of getting the flu is in an overcrowded hospital. The most immediate issue is to reduce the overcrowding. There is not a hospital that is not overcrowded which is the immediate problem.’
However, professors who worked on the RCPI report disagree with those who believe that mandatory vaccines are not necessary.
Professor Mary Horgan, President of the RCPI, said: ‘Mandatory influenza vaccination is the only measure proven to achieve vaccination uptake rates of 95%.
‘I fully support mandatory vaccination against flu infection in key healthcare personnel – in tandem with those already in place – to provide immunity to both healthcare workers and their patients.’
But despite the success of mandatory vaccines in North America, where uptake rates are at more than 90%, the Department of Health are focused on other ways to improve uptake in Ireland.
A spokesman for the Department for Health said: ‘Vaccination of health service staff is on a voluntary basis and the HSE and staff representative bodies work together to improve the take up of the influenza vaccine.
‘There are no plans to introduce mandatory vaccination for healthcare workers.’
Dr Blánaid Hayes, Dean of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine at RCPI, said the number of healthcare workers taking the vaccine were too low.
She said: ‘Several initiatives, such as ensuring convenient access, after-hours vaccination clinics, education campaigns and peer-to-peer vaccination have been somewhat successful in increasing uptake rates in recent years (up to 40% in 2017/2018) but they remain too low.
‘Healthcare professionals working in hospitals and in the community with infants, elderly patients and pregnant women must also receive the vaccination or sign a declination form.’
Virus can spread quickly
AS winter approaches, bringing with it greater risk of various illnesses associated with the season, as well as the inevitable problems of overcrowding in our hospitals, it is imperative that our frontline health workers are fully prepared to deal with the problems that lie ahead of them. That means, therefore, that they must take steps to protect themselves from illness so that they are able to continue to do their jobs to the very best of their ability at a time when our hospitals are particularly under pressure.
At a time when members of the public are being actively encouraged to get the flu vaccination so as to minimise their own risk, it is not acceptable that large numbers of our healthcare workers are, themselves, refusing to do just that. For those who work at the hospital coalface this should be a no-brainer – they will find themselves exposed more than most and must therefore take appropriate steps to protect themselves.
It can only be problematic for the administration of healthcare in this country if the people who are providing the service are putting themselves at risk of contracting the flu virus. Not only are they likely to have to take sick days themselves, thereby putting their colleagues under increased pressure, but they may also find themselves passing the virus on to patients who have other unrelated medical issues.
The call from the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland for compulsory flu vaccinations for all healthcare workers is therefore to be welcomed. It is the correct call. That it comes from those who know what they are talking about only serves to give it even more legitimacy.
Winter brings all kinds of additional pressures in our hospitals and staff need to be well so as to be fully equipped to deal with the situation. That they would put additional stress on the system by refusing to get the flu vaccination is therefore nonsensical.
We need to listen to the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and make the flu vaccination mandatory for frontline healthcare workers.