IN-FAIL-ENZA: MANY AHS STAFF WON’T GET FLU SHOT
Hospital workers aren’t doing enough to protect society’s most vulnerable
Only 50 per cent of Alberta Health Services employees were immunized against the flu this fall, according to the latest data from the health authority.
That’s down from 52 per cent at the same time last year.
“It’s not enough, obviously,” says Dr. Gerry Predy, senior medical officer of health for AHS. “Mandatory vaccination is pretty much the only way we’re going to move the dial.”
That’s a dramatic statement from Alberta Health Services’s top public health expert. For years now, both AHS and the provincial health department have insisted mandatory influenza vaccination wasn’t necessary, that public education could convince more health care and support workers to be immunized.
But flu-shot cheerleading just isn’t working.
Staff who work at the Stollery Children’s Hospital had the best immunization rate in the Edmonton zone this year at 63 per cent.
But that’s down significantly from the same time two years ago, when 73 per cent of Stollery workers were vaccinated.
Just think about it — almost 40 per cent of those who work with our sickest kids couldn’t be bothered to protect their tiny patients against a potentially fatal infectious disease.
Still, staff at the Stollery are rock stars compared to workers at some other Edmonton hospitals. Vaccination rates at Catholic-run Covenant Health facilities are well below the provincial average. At the Misericordia Hospital, only 45 per cent of staff were inoculated against influenza this year. At Grey Nuns, rates were even lower. Just 42 per cent of staff there could be bothered to take 15 minutes to get the flu shot.
As usual, Alberta Hospital Edmonton has the most dismal participation of any health-care facility in the Edmonton region. Just 31 per cent of staff had been immunized against the flu this year, down from 37 per cent two years earlier.
It’s maddening. Influenza can be a nasty nuisance, even if you’re healthy. If your immune system is compromised, influenza can be fatal. It’s killed 17 Albertans so far this flu season.
The flu shot is free. It’s fast. A flu shot can’t give you the flu. It can’t give you autism — only a slightly sore arm for a day or two. About the worst thing you can say about the influenza vaccine is that its effectiveness is inconsistent. The formula changes each year to match the predicted dominant flu strains and some seasons it works better than others.
In a time of anti-vaccine hysteria, we need health-care workers to set an ethical example. We need them to demonstrate respect for science and for logic.
Just this week, U.S. presidentelect Donald Trump took time to meet with high-profile anti-vaccine alarmist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. After their private meeting, Kennedy claimed Trump had asked him to head a national commission on vaccine safety. Trump’s own people demurred, insisting nothing quite like that had been confirmed.
Still, the fact Trump summoned Kennedy in the middle of a rather busy week — coupled with Trump’s own history of antivaccine comments — is giving aid and comfort to anti-vaxxers in the United States and elsewhere.
Forcing people to be vaccinated does sound coercive. But British Columbia adopted a policy in 2012 which requires all employees, doctors, residents, students, contractors, vendors and hospital volunteers to either get vaccinated against the flu, or to wear a face mask during flu season. Immunization rates are now above 80 per cent.
Obviously, we’d need to accommodate people who can’t be immunized for medical or religious reasons.
But it’s time to stop making excuses for health workers who just can’t be bothered, or who think they’re invincible, or who just have some vague prejudice against vaccines.
Given both the United Nurses of Alberta and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees oppose mandatory vaccination, it’s unlikely the NDP government will have much enthusiasm for the plan.
But this shouldn’t be about politics or popularity.
AHS already makes it a condition of employment for staff to be immunized against things like rubella and hepatitis B. Why should influenza be different?
“While the (flu) season isn’t over yet, the recent numbers on staff vaccination rates are disappointing and obviously mean that we have more work to do,” Health Minister Sarah Hoffman told me Friday in an emailed statement.
“As I have said before, we need all health-care workers to make the responsible choice and get vaccinated. When this season is over, we will sit down and find out where the final numbers landed and go from there.”
But if health care staff won’t make the responsible choice — maybe the minister should.
It’s not enough, obviously. Mandatory vaccination is pretty much the only way we’re going to move the dial.