Nurses Fired for Refusing Flu Shot

slimvictor

slimvictor

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An Indiana hospital has fired eight employees, including at least three veteran nurses, after they refused mandatory flu shots, stirring up controversy over which should come first: employee rights or patient safety. The hospital imposed mandatory vaccines, responding to rising concerns about the spread of influenza.

Ethel Hoover wore all black on her last day of work as a nurse in the critical care unit at Indiana University Health Goshen Hospital. She said she was in "mourning" because she would have been at the hospital 22 years in February, and she's only called out of work four or five times in her whole career , she said.

"This is my body. I have a right to refuse the flu vaccine," Hoover, 61, told ABCNews.com. "For 21 years, I have religiously not taken the flu vaccine, and now you're telling me that I believe in it."

More than 15,100 flu cases have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since Sept. 30, including 16 pediatric deaths. Indiana's flu activity level is considered high, according to the CDC, which last month announced that the flu season came a month earlier than usual.

When Hoover first heard about the mandate, she said she didn't realize officials would take it so seriously. She said she filed two medical exemptions, a religious exemption and two appeals, but they were all denied. The Dec. 15 flu shot deadline came and went. Hoover's last day of employment was Dec. 21.

Fellow nurse Kacy Davis said she and her colleagues were "horrified" over Hoover's firing, calling her their "go-to" nurse and a "preceptor."

"It was a good place to work," Hoover said. "We've worked together all these years. We're like a family."

The hospital said in a statement that it implemented the mandate to promote patient safety based on recommendations from the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It announced the mandate in September. Of the hospital's 26,000 employees statewide, 95 percent complied. That means 1,300 employees did not comply, but only eight were fired.


cont at
http://news.yahoo.com/nurses-fired-refusing-flu-shot-224637902--abc-news-health.html
 
^^ Well... if you believe people should have the right to take drugs as they want, does that also not mean they should have the right NOT to take certain drugs?



I got the flu shot in like September, I've been sick quite a few times since then when normally I almost never am.
 
Folley said:
^^ Well... if you believe people should have the right to take drugs as they want, does that also not mean they should have the right NOT to take certain drugs?



I got the flu shot in like September, I've been sick quite a few times since then when normally I almost never am.
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I got the flu shot and haven't been sick since getting it.

Of course people should have the right not to take the flu shot if they don't want it, but it doesn't make sense to allow employees of a hospital to transmit the flu virus instead of getting a flu shot. You could set yourself up for lawsuits from people who could claim they contracted the flu from an employee of the hospital if they were to learn that not all the employees were vaccinated.
 
I get them every start of winter now, after work said it was company policy to get them, and they pay for it. It took me a while to get around to it, and in that time I caught a nasty flu bug off one of the sick patients and had to have a while off work with bronchitis. They told me when i first got them it may cause headaches for a little bit, but it should subside pretty quick, i've also heard of people still getting sick after having it, but personally, I haven't got sick again in a few yrs now, so i'm pretty happy with it. First time I got 4 shots, one of them was in 2 parts and I got two other other ones, i recall one of them was for tetanus.

If its company policy you have to do it.
 
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She made the choice to be a nurse, right? Nurses need flu shots.

She didn't quit, so the hospital made her.
 
Captain.Heroin said:
They should be fired because there's no reason not to get a flu shot, especially when it's free.

Open up the job market for people who are more willing to jump through a few hoops to have a job.
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Sorry but this is BS. Everyone reacts differently to the flu shot. Some people have immune dysfunction after getting it for the rest of the flu season and actually end up getting the flu anyway. One year I had three different vaccines in the summer, one of which was the flu shot, and that winter I was more sick than I have ever been in my life. There is evidence that vaccines weaken immunity and actually make some people more susceptible to the flu.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/09/10/flu-shot-pandemic.html

Not to mention the narcolepsy side effect of the H1N1 vaccine in children under 6 years of age who are supposedly prime candidates for vaccination as they are considered "weakened members of the population".

I know a nurse who refuses the flu shot and the hospital she works for just forces her to wear a mask during flu season. The problem here isn't that nurses are refusing the shot, it's the policymakers at the hospital. Citing the AMA is bunk because their pockets are being lined by big pharma.

I respect your choice to get the shot but don't assume what's good for you is good for me.
 
Flu vaccinations are not particularly efficacious in many cases, but they are a better preventative measure than others...

For the average individual (healthy, between 16 and 55 years of age) a bout of influenza in this day and age will put you off work for a few days but it should not kill you. Now if you're working with immunocompromised people, or the elderly or whatever, it's probably a good idea to have a vaccine, though.

The real caveat is that the flu virus changes so fast, that you have to get lucky and hope your vaccine stays effective (and was made for the right 'version' of the virus). For some people the hassle of getting a flu shot and possibly falling ill is a larger risk than taking thier chances with influenza. And as stated above, sometimes the vaccination is just a waste of time and you get sick anyway.

Of course, things like meningitis vaccines are another story. I don't want to get measles from health workers.
 
Foreigner said:
Sorry but this is BS. Everyone reacts differently to the flu shot. Some people have immune dysfunction after getting it for the rest of the flu season and actually end up getting the flu anyway. One year I had three different vaccines in the summer, one of which was the flu shot, and that winter I was more sick than I have ever been in my life. There is evidence that vaccines weaken immunity and actually make some people more susceptible to the flu.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/09/10/flu-shot-pandemic.html

Not to mention the narcolepsy side effect of the H1N1 vaccine in children under 6 years of age who are supposedly prime candidates for vaccination as they are considered "weakened members of the population".

I know a nurse who refuses the flu shot and the hospital she works for just forces her to wear a mask during flu season. The problem here isn't that nurses are refusing the shot, it's the policymakers at the hospital. Citing the AMA is bunk because their pockets are being lined by big pharma.

I respect your choice to get the shot but don't assume what's good for you is good for me.
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Yeah I was nearly going to reply before to that comment, as I have heard some of those things you mentioned, i asked my doctor about the negatives of getting a flu shot and he basically told me the positives outweigh any negatives and only a very small amount of people have any adverse reaction to the shot. He said he gets it each autumn himself as he cant afford to be sick and as he works with sick people all the time, every day.

I must say it has worked for me and 2 other elderly relatives. I'd recommend it to anyone who works with sick or very sick people all the time, or the very elderly.
 
The trouble with flu shots is you have to get them each year. My doctor explained that the vaccine that comes out is developed based upon last year's virus that was dominant. So the shot I got in November won't prevent me from catching the latest strain of whatever's going around. It doesn't prevent you from getting the common cold, bronchitis, pneumonia, etc. I've gotten the flu shot every year since 1994 and never had a "bad reaction" from it but still sometimes got sick anyway. This year I got the pneumonia vaccine too because I'm prone to respiratory problems. This one is meant to last 5 years. Hope it works.

I feel bad that these nurses lost their jobs for not getting the vaccine. I mean they work in close quarters with sick people all day so it would benefit them but not guarantee prevention from illness. I feel it's more like a reason for management to get rid of people who are non-compliant with company policy. I was ill several times last year while working at the homeless shelter. I would get better, use hand sanitizer and stay away from sick clients. A couple weeks later I got sick again. This happened several times. When you're around people with who knows what viruses, a simple flu shot is not going to do the trick.
 
I posted this article because I was hoping it would incite some interesting discussion, and it has.

I don't get flu shots. Not only are they not particularly effective, but there is some evidence that they weaken the immune system, as Foreigner noted.
So it doesn't make sense to me that the nurse should have been fired.
 
I don't get flu shots, but both my mother and brother do. Brother is currently on work experience in a place which frequently meets older people and Mother works in a school. They both pay for their own.

I would expect a nurse of all people to take up all possible precautions so that the patients don't get illnesses from them, some of which can become fatal in conjunction with other illnesses. Of course flu shots are different because it changes so frequently and could weaken immune system. Maybe she shouldn't be sacked but the hospital were probably taken precautions and I imagine healthcare places have things like this in contracts, I might be wrong though.
 
I feel if you work in the health industry dealing directly with patients, they must follow such protocols set by the organizations like those that implemented this policy. Patients health comes first.

Now I understand the general public not getting certain vaccines and being allowed to choose not to, but there are some where it is necessary for the good of the larger community, and if they avoid such vaccinations as a result others can become ill at their expense, so in some cases there needs to be mandatory vaccines for the general public. The flu shot IMO, shouldn't be mandatory for the general public. if it can add even a slight increase in prevention of spreading the flu to the individuals a health care worker interacts with, there should be no questions as to whether or not they should have the right to deny such a preventative measure. They absolutely shouldn't be able to deny taking the preventative measure.
 
if it can add even a slight increase in prevention of spreading the flu to the individuals a health care worker interacts with, there should be no questions as to whether or not they should have the right to deny such a preventative measure. They absolutely shouldn't be able to deny taking the preventative measure.
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So, even a 1% increase in prevention - and at the risk of compromising the immune system - makes it worth it to give up our rights to control what we put in our bodies?
Sounds pretty extremist to me.
The individual might get some other disease due to a compromised immune system, and is essentially just as likely to get the flu.
I don't see the benefit here.
But you would see this as sufficient benefit to warrant the enforced immunization of the general public? Health care workers?
Doesn't make sense to me.

Giving up basic human rights for minuscule gains in flu prevention - or, some years, no gains at all - and with an accompanying risk of harming the individual is something I will fight against with every bit of strength I can muster.
 
Just a thought It's amazing the things most nurse's and anyone with direct patient contact will do to keep a patient from crashing often with little or no reguard to his or her own health and then turn down a flu shot and they are fired. IDK personally speaking I would rather have a good nurse that would stand up for her beliefs because she is usually the one that will stand up to the doctors when their patients need them too. And hospital nurses spend a lot more time listening and know what going on than the doctor does in that setting.
I have a Lot of respect for a lot of people who work in the medical field.Doctors, nurses, paramedics, emt's etc I will say these are people that really made me who I really was i looked up to respected and admired and helped me along my path, but such is life and with the good came the bad and lack of judgement led to bad choices that I can only hold my own self accountable for

Why out of so many people refusing a shot only 8 were actually fired? And where are there stories?

Nothing is ever as black and white as human resource would like to spin it with any field much less healthcare just reading the responses on this post shows some people reacted fine when they received the shot others did not. I question why a hospital would even set theirselves up for such bad press. Knowingly risking possible loss of grant money, funding and studies being pulled depending on the type of hospital.

Another thought medical staff in most cases that work in hospitals are usually willing to take the precautions to protect theirselves from illness from patients when starting this usually includes testing for tb, your normal childhood vaccinations and then given a set of 3 Hepatitis B shots and any other vaccine that didn't show up. Was she willing to take those shot to keep herself safe and get a job but refused a shot that could keep others safe

Everyday hospitals have to respect the right of their patients religious beliefs if their religion doesn't believe in being able to receive any type of blood they sign a consent and no matter how bad if it means you watch them die. The hospital respects their rights. Why is it ethical to give one person a right but take it from another?


It's really hard to try to see what is ethical here was it right for the hospital to deny her rights to choose what to do with her own body? Was it unethical as a nurse to not take a shot that could possibly put fellow employees and patients at risk? I'm guessing that is what the Hospital lawyers argument will be if this goes that far.

Your Move Ethel Hoover! Ask for a jury trial girl!
 
Why do certain Christians think that taking medicine is a sin? Medicine is used in the Bible, and it is never forbidden.

Isaiah had said, “Prepare a poultice of figs and apply it to the boil, and he will recover."
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Isaiah 38:21

These are very dangerous doctrines. A bus full of JWs recently crashed into an overpass at MIA and some of them died. Perhaps more could've been saved if they allowed themselves blood transfusions. But they can't have blood transfusions because in the time the Bible was written, certain pagans drank blood as a sacrament to some gnarled god. As a result, in their minds, every blood transfusion for the rest of time is a proclamation of fealty to Satanas! Did you know that? Every time you've given blood, you've actually been catering a party in honor of the prince of darkness!
 
slimvictor said:
I posted this article because I was hoping it would incite some interesting discussion, and it has.

I don't get flu shots. Not only are they not particularly effective, but there is some evidence that they weaken the immune system, as Foreigner noted.
So it doesn't make sense to me that the nurse should have been fired.
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That is correct. I can not take them at all. My endocrinologist doesn't allow it. I have a rare condition Primary Addison's Disease which means my adrenal glands that sit on top of my kidneys are dead. They do not produce steroids that we all need to fight off normal every day infection. Taking a virus would guarantee another long inpatient stay if not worse
 
slimvictor said:
Giving up basic human rights for minuscule gains in flu prevention - or, some years, no gains at all - and with an accompanying risk of harming the individual is something I will fight against with every bit of strength I can muster.
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Right on. I agree. I myself never would never get a flu shot, but to have someone tell a healthy person even in health care they must get one is denying that person a birthright to do to their own body what they want. That has been the problem with many situations in our society. It is a person's choice from the skin in what they do. If the nurse gets the flu she stays off of work.

Now I use to be in the health care field until I gave it the finger and left 20 years ago. I remember being on a geriatric ward and taking care of people. One old woman wanted me to open the drapes and let her get some sun in her face,. So I did. Some bitchy bossy nurse reprimanded me for doing that. I was suppose to give her her meds and basically tie her into bed. When that was done the poor woman staired at the wall and just groaned for hours while not knowing who she was. What great healthcare.

I think flu shots are bullshit. (Wow, I am glad I have my own opinion) The only people at work who got the flu were the ones that got the flu shot. The science behind doesn't make sense simply because we already know the slightest mutation makes the vaccine useless. This is not the polio or small pox vaccine which makes sense to me, this is different. This is media hype at it's worst. Staying healthy, eating right and getting rest is more preventative.

If I had money I would give this woman as much as she needs to take this to the highest court.
 
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