Employee gets flu shot from nurse

Bill Staples, a Mississippi Department of Health employee, is given a flu vaccine shot by registered nurse Rosemary Jones, also with the health department, in this October file photo taken in Jackson, Miss. A survey by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers found that in 2011, more than 400 U.S. hospitals required flu vaccinations for their employees and 29 hospitals fired employees who were not vaccinated against the virus. Associated Press

Should health care workers have the right to refuse getting a flu shot?

CHICAGO - Patients can refuse a flu shot. Should doctors and nurses have that right, too? That is the thorny question surfacing as U.S. hospitals increasingly crack down on employees who wont get flu shots, with some workers losing their jobs over their refusal.

Where does it say that I am no longer a patient if Im a nurse, wondered Carrie Calhoun, a longtime critical care nurse in suburban Chicago who was fired last month after she refused a flu shot.

Hospitals get-tougher measures coincide with an earlier-than-usual flu season hitting harder than in recent mild seasons. Flu is widespread in most states, and at least 20 children have died.

Most doctors and nurses do get flu shots. But in the past two months, at least 15 nurses and other hospital staffers in four states have been fired for refusing, and several others have resigned, according to affected workers, hospital authorities and published reports.

In Rhode Island, one of three states with tough penalties behind a mandatory vaccine policy for health care workers, more than 1,000 workers recently signed a petition opposing the policy, according to a labor union that has filed suit to end the regulation.

Why would people whose job is to protect sick patients refuse a flu shot? The reasons vary from allergies to flu vaccine, which are rare, to religious objections and skepticism about whether vaccinating health workers will prevent flu in patients.

Dr. Carolyn Bridges, associate director for adult immunization at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says the strongest evidence is from studies in nursing homes, linking flu vaccination among health care workers with fewer patient deaths from all causes.

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Health care workers who refuse flu shot thorny issue