Flu season is not the most wonderful time of year for anyone, but for the nurses of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, the period of sickness from October to May is bringing a lawsuit along with the symptoms of the influenza virus.
As Massachusetts public health officials have been striving to increase the number of flu vaccinations among health care workers, hospitals have begun requiring that their workers be vaccinated in order to reduce the risk of infecting already-sick patients. Following this trend, Brigham and Women’s Hospital issued a mandate that if employees are not vaccinated, they could potentially be fired. The hospital also elected to provide the vaccination in its own facilities free of charge.
Although this seems fair, there is a catch, one that prompted the Massachusetts Nurses Association to sue Brigham and Women’s Hospital Wednesday. The regulations in the Massachusetts Department of Public Health clearly stipulate that employers cannot force their workers to receive a flu vaccine, no matter what their reason. MNA represents approximately 3,700 nurses at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
“A hospital shall not require an individual to receive an influenza vaccine … if the vaccine is medically contraindicated, which means that administration of influenza vaccine to that individual would likely be detrimental to the individual’s health; or vaccination is against the individual’s religious beliefs; or the individual declines the vaccine.”
Under the mandate, flu shots are required once a year to continue working. What’s more, the vaccine is only 61 percent effective, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a probability that isn’t exactly bad, but not sensational either. Brigham and Women’s Hospital has a worker vaccination rate of 77 percent, leaving a large chunk of their staff opposed to the yearly needle.
Still, there are several reasons to support a statewide law that all hospital caretakers receive the influenza vaccine. The flu may not be deadly to a healthy person, but patients are not admitted to hospitals because they are healthy. Chances are, someone who is already confined to a hospital bed is more vulnerable to getting the flu than the average person, and they are more likely to have a harsher version of it. Why risk the chance of making already-sick patients even sicker?
The Massachusetts Hospital Association filed legislation in 2013 that stipulates all health care industry workers be vaccinated, but hefty opposition from the MNA has stalled approval. Still, the push for standardizing this practice has not quieted, and other hospitals in Boston, such as the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, have successfully increased their vaccination rates.
“Flu vaccination is one vital way to ensure delivery of safe and high quality health care, and anything less than 100 percent compliance is unacceptable and a disservice to patients,” MHA President Lynn Nicholas told the Boston Globe in July.
It might be a disservice to patients, but forcing nurses to be injected yearly with needles against their will is equally unfair. Nurses are people, and people have the right to be responsible for their own bodies. It’s one thing to require nurses to arm themselves from deadly diseases through vaccination, such as polio and the measles, but the flu is not deadly in contemporary times. Nurses should have the right to reject the needle.
Rights aside, nurses should also care for the safety and well being of their patients. After all, that is a large chunk of their job description. They may not have to get the influenza vaccination, but if they wanted to perform their jobs to their fullest potential, would they not want to get the vaccine anyway? Nurses are supposed to make their patients as comfortable as possible, and it’s likely that infecting them with the flu is not going to enhance a sick person’s hospital stay.
The MNA is right in wanting to protect its nurses from what could come down to a major breach on workers’ rights, but the Brigham and Women’s Hospital is also correct in its dedication to preserving its patients’ health to the best of its ability.
It’s unfortunate these two principles have to conflict, but in the end, the nurses should not have to face job termination for turning down what should be an optional vaccination. However, if nurses purport to care for the patient’s health, perhaps they should consider getting the vaccination on their own accord anyway.
