Our Rights, And Life Or Your Job?

Mandatory Influenza Vaccinations for healthcare providers can be a controversial topic for some and may propose a challenge to some provider’s ethical values and beliefs. The topic of mandatory vaccination for influenza (“flu”) has been widely studied and debated among professionals over several years. It is apparent that there is some movement towards a mandatory vaccination for influenza by healthcare institutions as the benefit out weighs the risk on several fronts. “Influenza infection is associated with 36,000 excess deaths and > 200,000 hospitalizations in the United States annually. It is the leading cause of vaccine-preventable death in the United States every year” (Babcock, Geminhart, Jones, Dunagan, & Woeltje, 2010, p. 459).

Vaccinations have been a topic of controversy among various populations for decades. The controversy exists around the decision to be vaccinated for certain contagious diseases or to omit receiving vaccinations for various reasons including those of medical, ethical, and religious derivation. The profession of healthcare faces a particular obstacle in regard to annual vaccinations against influenza. This review will discuss the following ethical debate: Is it ethical to mandate health care workers to receive annual influenza vaccinations? For the purposes of this review, the term ‘health care worker’ will be defined as any person who is employed by a health care institution and participates in personal interactions with patients. Undoubtedly, registered nurses (RNs) are among the most prevalent of all health care workers. This topic was chosen because influenza is a rampant and contagious respiratory virus that carries the potential to infect anyone. According the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (2014), approximately 5 to 15 percent of the United States population becomes infected with influenza annually and roughly 200,000 people are hospitalized each year due to influenza. Clearly, influenza generates havoc for many people; however, the virus can be largely prevented by receiving an annual vaccination. Annual influenza vaccinations have been rendered the best way to prevent seasonal influenza and have also been deemed safe (CDC, 2014). Health care workers

In conclusion, healthcare workers should have to receive a mandatory influenza vaccine to ensure a safe environment for patients to be treated. The worker’s rights are not violated

Ethically we must also respect and support each other as co-workers and protect each other from being infected by the flu. It is shown that when influenza vaccination is mandatory, many workers will choose not to get the vaccine because healthcare workers feel that they are not being given the choice to opt out of not having to get either vaccinated and must wear a mask. Nevertheless, if influenza is not mandatory many healthcare workers tend to get the vaccination, as all healthcare workers have one goal and that the protection of our other fellow workers as well as

As employees and health care works of well known organizations, we have an ethical and moral obligation to make decisions and choices that reflect the best interest of the health of our patients. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (2010), mandatory programs should be enforced for health professionals justifying the need for employees to receive the influenza vaccine. The Joint Commission believes that an estimated 80% or higher of influenza immunization rates are crucial for providing the necessary immunity needed to protect and reduce influenza infections or health-related illnesses (The American Academy of Pediatrics, 2010). Voluntary programs consist of having the vaccine readily available for employees for no cost, providing staff with education on influenza prevention, and having

There is no reliable, high-quality evidence showing that vaccinating every health-care worker greatly reduces flu cases and deaths. In the absence of evidence based support, the influenza prevention has become an industry that health officials manipulate and misrepresent. Additionally, flu shot as an invasive medical treatment carries risks of injury and death, and is by far the most danger vaccination. Canadian Medical Law states that forcing a medical procedure on a person against their will violates the Informed Consent ethic, is fraudulent and constitutes a “battery” against that person[7] Therefore, those against forced flu vaccination strongly believe that it is their fundamental human right not to be subjected to medical interventions without fully informed consent when receiving invasive medical treatments (including vaccines). They state that the policy was an abuse of the privacy rights of health-care

Do you go every year to receive your flu shot? Is it a tradition to take your family to go get vaccinated? For health care workers it is mandatory. Some other occupations require flu shots as well. The flu is a very communicable disease. Anyone can get sick from the flu, it may even be fatal. Health care workers are exposed to many different kinds of germs and many other harmful pathogens daily. It should be required for every personal to get a flu shot to help stop the spread of the flu virus and make for a healthier community.

Organisms can easily be spread from patients to HCW, and then back to other patients with whom they may have contact. Vaccinations can reduce or eliminate the risk of contracting targeted diseases, and can reduce the risk of these diseases to unvaccinated persons, such as polio and smallpox, but this does not necessarily hold true for influenza. The concept of mandatory HCW influenza vaccination remains under debate as to whether HCWs are ethically obligated to be vaccinated, risking not only their employment status, but their own health and personal principles, in pursuit of “the greater good”.

Information presented should address health care workers issues concerning vaccine safety and effectiveness. Supporting statistical data should validate the decision. There should be widespread discussions about the reasons for the policy. Allowances should be made for those nurses who have a legitimate reason for not taking it. Legitimate reasons could include but not limited to medical and religious reasons. To prevent the possibility of causing Guillain-Barre syndrome only egg free vaccine should be used. Another option would be to establish that a worker is not allergic to egg before receiving the flu vaccine. Review of the policy for effectiveness in preventing the flu and the impact on health care workers should be carried after a specified time

As a child, one of my greatest fears was needles. As such, one can assume flu season, and the vaccines that came with it, was the worst time for year for me. I never understood why I had to get vaccines. However, looking back now, I’ve come to the conclusion that as much as they hurt, vaccines were the way to go. One of the most divisive topics in Canada today is whether or not child immunization should be made mandatory across the country. Currently, there is no federal law that mandates vaccinations for children. Yet three provinces, New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba, have some form of regulation that require proof of immunization regarding some vaccines before a child can attend school. The idea of compulsory vaccinations is greatly debated,

Monitoring Flu vaccinations is one of our performance measures in my facility where beginning in the month of September to about March, you have what we call a clinical reminder that you have to complete every time you see a patient and this ensures that every clinician that opens this patients chart will have the opportunity to ask the patient if they have received a flu shot for the year and if not and encourage then to get one if they have not had it; The (CDC) encourages employers to make flu vaccinations compulsory in the workplace because it found that compliance among organizations with a mandatory vaccination policy was as high as 88.8 percent compared to 44.3 percent in organizations that did not; Although there are individuals

For years, universal childhood vaccinations have been a deliberated and debated topic among much of the population. Those who are in support of vaccination, including healthcare providers, believe that vaccinations are not only in the best interest of each child’s health, but also in the best interest of the public’s health as a whole. Many vaccine supporters also believe that the benefit of vaccinations outweigh the risks associated with them (Song, 2014, p. 542). Those who are not in support of vaccinations, or display hesitancy regarding them, may not perceive the continuing need for them or may decline them for various other reasons. Anti-vaccinators are also typically concerned with the safety of vaccinations and believe that the risks associated with them may be greater than their benefit (Song, 2014, p. 542). This paper will focus on discussing some of the ethical issues arising from childhood vaccinations, it will apply ethical principles such as autonomy and beneficence to the issue, and it will explore the role of the nursing profession and ethical standards by which they abide.

This paper explores the issues surrounding the mandatory vaccination of healthcare workers with the Influenza vaccine. The Center for Disease control advises all health care workers to get vaccinated annually against influenza (Center for Disease Control, 2017). Mandatory vaccination policies have always been debated, and in this policy there is not much difference. The continued efforts by many healthcare officials to implement policies to avoid the effects caused by unvaccinated staff have promulgated controversial debates among many health managers regarding the ethical and moral implications of such programs. Some agree to enforcing mandatory rules, while other are totally against it. Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle was the first

Whether good medicine is for the better of the people or not, there’s always going to be opposing viewpoints. One popular argument that arises when debating whether vaccines should be mandatory or not, is that vaccines are against the people’s religion. Families will request exemptions for their children from mandatory school vaccinations. Consequently, the government has no choice, but to give the exemption to the families because of freedom of

If hospitals decide not to implement mandatory flu vaccines, but provide free of charge, widely accessible vaccination to all staffs. In addition, hospitals will provide intensive education, especially about the effectiveness and side effects of the vaccine (Lei et al., 2015), throughout the year and particularly during flu season. No disparities will be created because all staffs have the equal opportunity to access to vaccination and intense flu education.