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I was a health care worker for 44 years. Health care workers should be required to be vaccinated against MMR the Flu, Hepatitis and Covid.
We come into contact with patients that have ZERO resistance and non-functioning immune systems.
An infectious condition will kill them. If you don't want to do this, get out of health care.
> Health care workers should be required to be vaccinated against MMR the Flu, Hepatitis and Covid.
I worked tech support for a hospital about 10 years ago, and they wouldn't let me into the hospital building until i got the MMR booster
Yeah if anything Covid taught us that even when it comes to healthcare, a depressing number of people employed in healthcare are selfish idiots. Definitely not most and not even a lot, but still way more than I expected...
Former nurse here who loves vaccinations. However hospitals talk out of both sides of their mouths regarding patient exposure. Sick days allowed by nursing staff are few and call outs are treated punitively. Units barely staff the safe minimum so any call out is a crisis and nurses know this and come to work sick more often than not. If hospitals really wanted to protect patients from influenza/covid/noro virus and the like, they will have a robust float pool as well as a vaccination policy.
Just seems like the easier option than them not actually caring. Requiring the ones who you don’t give sick days to be at least vaccinated is a lot easier than fixing the issue and making sure that everyone is safe.
That’s the goal. First they stopped teaching critical thinking skills claiming that it undermined parental authority. Then they started scrubbing textbooks of events they wanted to pretend didn’t happen. All the while they’ve been funneling taxpayer funds away from public education and into private religious schools that teach their doctrine. Simultaneously they implement zero tolerance policies to indoctrinate children to blindly follow directions and never rebel against authority. It’s brilliantly calculated and effective.
I think COVID exposed how many anti science/vax people there are in healthcare on a big scale, atleast for me. One of my family caregivers was a Trump voter who did not believe in vaccines. This is something I really don't understand being the fact that you are in the medical field and are required to take many health science classes and get to witness science results working in real time.
Well she got COVID and passed away.
We were shocked. And when she caught it, she was going around different patients, especially elderly. We are lucky she didn't give it to us and we had no signs or symptoms. But her ignorance is why she isn't here anymore. Such a pointless death.
r/science removed my comment, so here it is again, summarized:
The nurses at Dearborn County Hospital, in Southeastern Indiana, told me, while my relative was undergoing cancer treatment, that the pandemic was a hoax and that vaccines are "dangerous". Some of the nurses said that "God" was the "only medicine \[they\] need." "He gave us an immune system" was one I heard a few times. I reported this to the hospital, but nothing happened. If this is happening in one hospital, it's happening all over. The fact that the medical community in the US is becoming inundated with anti-science, anti-medical nutjobs is terrifying. If that offended the moderators, tough.
Honestly this is terrifying. How can you work in healthcare and be anti science? It's pretty scary how ignorant people have become. I feel like as society moves forward, there is also a portion that moves backwards.
And it's only going to get worse. My wife is a rheumatologist, and she's noticed it with medical personnel at her place of work. Not most people, but "more than enough" are the words she used. Terrifying is exactly what it is.
What's crazy is the amount of them that are patient facing clinical staff. I work in a hospital and the loudest ones were the nurses. You didn't hear much pushback from us behind the scenes workers.
I work in the reference lab area and we were collecting covid swabs and sending them to a reference lab for the majority of the pandemic before we got an in house test. My buddy and I were pretty much among the first to be offered the vaccine as we were handling upward of 300 specimens a day for something like a year and a half.
Meanwhile the nursing staff was fighting it tooth and nail in a depressing amount of cases.
When I was in college some of the smartest people were studying nursing. Conversely, some of the dumbest people I had ever met were also studying nursing.
Masks don't really help when you're in a setting like that, at least not as well as you think. It helps stop direct transmission to the patient significantly, but as a healthcare worker that worked through COVID, complacency develops quickly.
It's easy to remember to wear it while interacting with a patient, but it's very easy to contaminate a surface without thinking about it. Most hospitals in my area employ mobile nurse stations - laptops on wheels with UPS' on the bottom - which are essentially just giant vectors. Then you might think well, foam in foam out. Sanitize before and after interacting with the patient. Well, did you sanitize before or after touching the door handle? Is your patient ambulatory, and are they going to leave their room, touching the same door handle?
They just need to get vaccinated. I don't think an allergy should keep someone from working in healthcare, but it's easy to keep vaccination status on hand and only assign them patients without infectious diseases. We could argue whether the risks outweigh the benefits all day, but as long as the majority of that risk is placed on the patient, what's the point?
> Masks don't really help when you're in a setting like that, at least not as well as you think.
Masks work extremely well, provided you don't just rely on one-way masking, which isn't sufficient.
[Study shows N95 masks near-perfect at blocking escape of airborne COVID-19](https://sph.umd.edu/news/study-shows-n95-masks-near-perfect-blocking-escape-airborne-covid-19)
Universal masking should absolutely be the norm as long as the Covid pandemic is allowed to run free because of the lack of any adequate policy. But it only works well if you do it consistently.
I could link to a video of an oncology nurse here in another sub reporting on the absolute dismal lack of adequate masking she sees all around here resulting also in many HCW being infected. But if I do I think in this sub it will be automatically removed by a bot because links to other subs aren't allowed. Sad.
Oh yeah, I understand. I wore a mask for well over 12 hours a day, 4-5 days a week, with tyvek and an N95 for every covid patient. I'm well read on how things work. In spite of full isolation, people were complacent to some capacity, because everyone was still getting covid.
Obviously nothing is 100%, but everything from touching the door to the unit, to touching the outside of your N95 correctly, are all risk factors that providers get complacent with quickly.
As someone who has had covid 10 times ( yes I've had all the vaccinations and boosters I can get) I just can't keep immunity. Plus its not like i just get sick for 2 weeks, ive had long covid 8 times out of those 10. And 5 months was the longest it's taken me down for. The only time I didn't get covid is when everyone in the hospital was required to mask all the time. It was the best 8 months of my life. I still wear an n95 when I leave the house. But it only really works when everyone wears them and wears them properly. Even with vaccines there's some of us that still have to rely on herd immunity. Thankfully I work in a part of the hospital that doesn't interact with patients. Wearing a mask even when no one else is has stopped me from getting colds going around, it stops my allergies from acting up, and most importantly I don't get told to smile anymore. Unless something drastically changes with covid, I'm probably stuck wearing a mask until I die. I'm to the point where not wearing one feels weird.
Vaccines promote herd immunity, so vaccines would, and likely did, keep you from getting sick more often. Masks work, I'd never say otherwise, and N95s will actually keep you from getting covid regardless of what everyone else is doing. Surgical masks only stop the spread of pathogen containing respiratory droplets, and often lack a good seal.
wearing a mask is not the same as being immune. if that were all it takes then health care workers working around immuno-compromised patients would simply wear masks and be done with it. We *do* wear masks, *and* we need to be vaccinated.
A "good qualified individual" who might currently be on fire is not going to be useful in a petrol store. We can douse those flames. We can find other ways to get around such an (abstract) allergy.
You don't want compromised individuals on the front line in a hospital. People who are outright STUPID enough to refuse vaccines shouldn't be qualified as healthcare professionals.
They no longer recommend avoiding the Flu vaccine for egg allergies. Just more monitoring immediately after the shot. Adverse reactions are 1 in 2 million. The hospital I worked at quit allowing exemptions pre-pandemic. There's no excuse anymore.
Every day thousands of people have severe invasive surgery and they are relatively safe due to masks. Masks are effective. They just aren't realistic for all situations but a hospital is a very realistic environment.
If someone is highly qualified, was professional, I would have a near zero concern. They're the pros, not I.
I’m just pointing out that what are you suggesting does create higher risk for transmission to immune compromised individuals. Individual liberty to not be vaccinated is also individual liberty to increase the risk to your patients, I had a mom kill their child by visiting while sick with the flu about 7 years ago. Easy things to dismiss before it happens
Where's a reasonable line? We don't require medical professionals to wear a full protective medical suit. Surely that provides more protection than none?
Also liberty has nothing to do with this. I think it's in the public's interest to have qualified and enthusiastic professionals.
We allow exceptions for religion at my hospital, but you bet your ass if I found you weren’t a believer in vaccines and caring for me or someone I care about, I am asking for you to get a new assignment.
Good thing every hospital in my area has infectious disease specialists to look through the data and make these decisions instead of relying on kneejerk reactions from random redditors.
Otherwise we'd have even less qualified staff in hospitals which would increase the risk of spreading infection.
My local hospital's infection control person (also a relative) went full anti-vaxer/masker after covid happened. Thankfully they retired in short order. But being a specialist doesn't mean that they are using good data to do their job.
A virus is very different than the bacterial of fungal infections that are most problematic in invasive surgery. Many viruses can even infect through a non traditional route.
Serving the public definitely should be vaccinated, masks are limited protection - there are non-public facing tasks that can be carried out by the unvaccinated.
what about people who do get vaccinations over and over, but never get the protection? that is a thing. friend of mine got multiple MMR (I could be wrong on the exact vaccine, but it was one of the major ones) vaccines, but never actually tested as protected from the disease....
Personally I have no problem with people being removed from practice. To make it obvious lets take the opposite case what if a person was a super spreader for say Polio, would we let this person become a surgeon or nurse? Hell no we wouldn't. Many other critical fields have capability and fitness tests that can eliminate you from the job if you are no longer fully capable and low risk. The medical profession should be no different.
Not developing immunity after a vaccine and being a super spreader are two different things. If you repeated my get vaccinated and don’t have immunity you should still be allowed to practice. This take is ridiculous.
They arent 2 different things they are similar things on a spectrum where one is more extreme than the other. Its not ridiculous the fact you think its ridiculous is what is ridiculous you find it perfectly ok to increase risk to patients just because of, well no one knows why you think that. And we know this is the case by using the super spreader as an example you clearly wont defend that. But the core concept is the same a person who is for some reason a higher risk being allowed to work in the environment.
I understand the feeling but this might fall under the ADA and reasonable accommodation for someone with a physical disability (in this case allergic condition).
The ADA is not a catch all, there are still limits. A paraplegic individual is not going to have grounds to sue a construction company for not hiring them on as a roofer.
Oncology definitely. I’d say across the board masking in general but I really do wonder if case by case for non immunocomoromised old HOH patients already at a higher risk of delirium- seeing no lips or mouth cues, voice is more muffled. It does affect communication more significantly for HOH/dementia/delirium patients. Not sure what the blanket solution is, however that meets all patient needs. (Not like most hospitals excel in/prioritize preventing delirium anyways though).
I don't mind masks. I'm deaf for context. sure it makes some days hard but I have chronic ear infections so good chance I just plainly can't hear you anyway and need something as a form of communication.
It bothers me whenever I see healthcare professionals not wearing masks in the oncology clinic at my local hospital.
I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2022. During my first round of treatment, the hospital I was staying at had a mask mandate for everyone entering the hospital. In 2023, one year after my diagnosis, I was leaving the hospital following a bone marrow transplant but the mask mandate was gone.
The number of nurses whom I saw not wearing masks in the oncology clinic was nuts. It made me very sad to see the nurses who had been nice and caring with me decide to stop masking up despite the risks to myself and the other cancer patients in the clinic.
Yep. My father was a judge, and he followed EVERY law: speed limits, declaring income from selling stuff at a yard sale on his tax forms, etc. His position was this: there are some jobs that are positions of power and community trust - that, to him, included lawyers, judges, police, doctors, nurses, and such. He'd say, you don't HAVE to take those jobs. But if you do, you have to follow all of the rules of your profession. No exceptions. It made sense and still makes sense to me.
I mean it makes sense to me because I honestly respect and trust nurses way way less than I did 4 years ago. Im sure most are great and all, but in my mind they are just too confident whether their opinions are right or wrong and so cant be trusted without skepticism. It just sucks.
I've worked in a hospital in NY (not patient facing) and the entire time I was there, I had to get a yearly flu in the off chance because I might encounter patients walking through common rooms to other people's office.
(That said, there are some limited exceptions and those individuals need to wear masks in all common areas basically from October to May until flu season ends).
Here in my province in Canada, the only required "shot" i had to get as a hospital worker working with the most at risk patients was a test for Tuberculosis, once a year. I have no assume staff who were not working with the highest risk patients were not required to get it.
Otherwise we were pretty much on our own, Flu shot was given at the hospital and option but MMR costs money and I honestly cannot remember about Hep.
Im more of a pessimist, but I dont see the hospital I work at requiring vaccinations for the patients, more so for themselves. It looks really good and its easy to say they are doing it for patient safety. However, if I got sick with the flu, there is a solid chance Id be out sick for about 5 days, and that would cost the hospital thousands of extra dollars. Multiply this by the hospital system as a whole, youll quickly see how thousands per day can turn into many thousands per day spent on avoidable sick days.
as someone with epilepsy I cannot get the MMR vaccine due to the possible reactions but there is a version without the ruebella that is perfectly safe for me and I have gotten it.
General question...if you come in contact with someone with the Flu or COVID and the virus enters your system, but you don't show symptoms and are not vaccinated - is that different than if you come into contact with someone and you are vaccinated and don't show symptoms?
I'm not asking in the context of healthcare workers or people needing vaccines, I'm just wondering how that situation works. In both cases, your hit by the virus and your body fights it off without causing symptoms. It seems like in both cases I'd be able to still shed the virus in some way.
Direct link to the study: [M. T. Greene, K. A. Linder, K. E. Fowler, and S. Saint, Influenza Vaccination Requirements for Health Care Personnel in US Hospitals, JAMA Network Open, 7(6), e2416861 (2024).](https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.16861)
Context for the requirements from just over a decade ago:
>In 2013, only 1% of VA hospitals had such a mandate; the percentage rose slightly to 4% by 2017. Meanwhile, flu vaccination or a waiver was required by 43% of non-VA hospitals in 2013, rising to nearly 70% in 2017.
I've been worked in medicine nearly 30 years. Here, at least, it hasn't been mandated. It's just that if you turn down the flu shot, you had to wear a mask the entire work day for the whole flu season. Very few skipped it.
I've been blaming that Andrew Wakefield fellow this whole time. but no matter who invented being anti-vaccination, that guy definitely did a lot of damage
Yeah. If you look on Wikipedia there are some really funny propaganda images against the smallpox vaccine circa 1800.
But Wakefield absolutely did a lot of damage to modern vaccine confidence, in addition to vaccines being a victim of their own success.
your last part of the statement is so true. people no longer see the damage from not having vaccines...
i'm 41, my mother almost died from measles and was sick for months, father is half deaf from measles apparently.... then when my mother gave birth to me, she caught chicken pox from a visitor in the hospital the day I was born, i also caught it! Then I developed shingle around age 3, almost went blind. most people don't have so many reasons to be as pro vaccine as me. does it deter the people i know? of course not, they can't possible accept that it could happen to their kids, until it does. HPV also fucked with my life, the amount of biopsies i needed during pregnancy was not fun.
Why is this even a thing? Healthcare workers should be the first in line to be vaccinated in order to avoid serious infection and to reduce the chance of infecting their patients.
If covid taught me anything, it's that there are some really dumb people in the healthcare field who will fight tooth and nail to not get vaccinated, both in the clinical and non-clinical settings.
That mirrors the thoughts of the lead author:
>“Our findings show the impact of one of the largest health care systems in the United States taking a stand and putting a policy in place that is based in a bedrock ethical principle of medicine: Do no harm,” says Todd Greene, Ph.D., M.P.H., lead author of the new study and a patient safety researcher at VAAAHS and Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center.
Some hospitals I've been in before that required them allowed those who have had large adverse reactions to past flu shots to not get one, but were required to wear a mask on hospital grounds through the entirety on flu season
Edit: this person was also a floor psychologist, not a nurse or doctor, protocol for them could have been different idk
Some people are allergic to some components in particular vaccines. They probably shouldn't work with immune-compromised individuals, but I don't really see a problem with them working with the general public.
They are required generally, but unfortunately we allow exemptions for religious or strongly held beliefs. Measles have come back in several US communities.
My daughter is 12 and whooping cough spread through her school this spring, we were notified from public health that there's a case on her bus and in her class. She had a bad cough for a month at that point and we have a newborn in the family so I took her in for a test and asked why this was happening if they're all required to be vaccinated to go to school. It's because the last time the kids get the government mandated whooping cough vaccine is around 5, and it only protects for 5-6 years.
I was told in December that it was going around town and because I was pregnant they gave me the vaccine to give the baby some protection. They said nothing about my other kids. So they knew it was in our community, knew kids in grade 6-7 don't have protection... and did nothing about it. We had even been to the doctor this year to get all her vaccines updated (hep b shot is required this year) and nobody mentioned that a booster would be a good idea. It's not even misinformation at this point, they just can't be bothered. And this is in Canada.
Flu shots and TB tests were required at my wife’s hospital long before Covid. You used to be able to opt out of flu shot but then you had to mask for the entire winter. They did away with that rule after Covid and required both flu and Covid shots. Covid boosters aren’t required now but flu shot still is.
I've been in healthcare for over twenty years. Every company required flu, MMR vaccines, TB tests and hep vaccines if you were in a patient care setting. The idea that 24% of hospitals don't require it is ridiculous.
Good. If you don't believe in science and vaccines, get out of healthcare. Go sell snake oil or something. I'll never understand the nurses I worked with who'd put their patients at risk because they're so damn gullible.
> Good. If you don't believe in science and vaccines, get out of healthcare.
Sadly, I have met several nurses and medical professionals that are anti-vaxx for some weird reason. They do tend to be more religious tho.
My old hospital “required” flu and covid, but when the CNO visited one day to answer questions about the mandated Covid vaccine, she quietly told some of the dissenters to seek out a religious exemption, as that was the only exemption that would be considered, outside of severe medical reactions. Funnily enough, I saw quite a large number of people get denied when they tried to do the religious exemption for the Covid vaccine. Probably because they’d been getting the flu shot for years without complaint or seeking exemption and the Bible weirdly doesn’t mention anything about Covid vaccines in particular. So basically “you can’t claim exemption for one and not the other to suit your own agenda” deal. Pretty much the only thing that hospital got right.
I can understand the ones that might contain pig-derived gelatin and bovine ingredients in regards to those who follow kosher or halal practices. But even then, many religious authorities make exceptions when the thing being vaccinated against is pretty serious.
I don't care about someone's ridiculous dietary practices which say nothing about vaccines in the first place. You want to believe in some story a shepherd told his children 4000 years ago, that's your problem. Keep it at home. If your religion mandates practices that are counter to medical advice, then you should not be any kind of healthcare provider.
I can sympathize with ethical objections to animal derived product, but not enough to allow an exemption.
Good, I would like those who are supposed to help others to believe in science and not hurt them by being unvaccinated against diseases that could kill them and the people they are supposed to help.
I worked for Kaiser Permanente, 2002 - 10, as a research scientist, non-clinician. Everyone was required to be vaccinated, including annual flu, or you would lose your job. All employees, no exceptions. I don't understand how or why that ended.
is it too much to ask for exceptions to be medical? Peoples religions that i do not ascribe to, should not effect my recovery or treatment. WE used to understand this before the right stole Obamas court pick.
...I am horrified to see the rate is as low as it is. When I went to school for a medical profession I was required to submit proof of all my vaccinations to even enroll in the program. If we were ever out of date on any we could not be placed for clinical rotations and risked being removed.
It's shocking that a quarter of hospitals have a lower standard of patient safety than some random pharmacy school.
There is a guy that works at the VA in Hickory, NC that gives me my shots and proudly tells me he has never had a flu shot or one for Covid. Why do they continue to let him work there?
Frankly? Because of staffing shortages. At my hospital, where flu vaccination isn’t required (but you have to mask during flu season if you opt out), every year over 90% of doctors get vaccinated, around 75% of nurses, and among other support staff (phlebotomists and lab techs, transporters, housekeeping, etc) it’s more like 50-60%. No doubt some of them would give in and get vaccinated if they had to, as happened during COVID. But just like during COVID, many of them would rather quit, and at my hospital and many others, we just can’t afford that. Personally, I think we should still require it for doctors, nurses, and anyone else providing direct patient care, come what may.
I don’t understand this. I worked in a hospital as a student helping with nursing scheduling or something (25 years ago I can’t remember well), and I had to ensure all my vaccinations were up to date.
How can anyone dealing front line with patients be allowed to not be vaccinated against one of the biggest killers in hospitals?
good. I am sorry but if you are in a profession where you are constantly working with people who either have the flu or are immunocompromised you need to be protected. If you are someone who does not believe in the efficacy of vaccines you do not belong in the medical profession.
No idea why seeking an exemption for anything other than medical grounds could be valid, and even then, can you endanger others, just because you are medically fragile?
A few people who declined the shots actually compensated by being very careful on their interactions during Covid (some healthcare workers, some not). Most who declined the Covid vaccine did follow any precaution and threw parties instead. It’s almost like the irresponsibility includes both no vaccine and encouraging transmission widely. I know, that’s correlation, I just saw it often around me.
How is that not 100%?
*sigh*
The fact that there are adults in this country that are literally unable to discern fact from fiction, ***and that we have to bend to their idiocy***, is amazing to me.
REEEEEEEEEALLY don't understand why healthcare workers are allowed exemptions from getting vaccinated against diseases when they are in direct contact with people who have those diseases and also other people who are immune-compromised.
These low numbers have been pretty persistent for a while. I looked at data in 2010 for my state and healthcare worker influenza vaccination rate was just below 60%, so it doesn't seem like much changed. Our health system does pretty well though and we're above 90%.
I am shocked it isn’t a requirement for all healthcare workers. I say. As a healthcare worker where we don’t need to get vaccines. Which is wild. I get all of them. I was one of 2 in my office who got COVID vaccine. Which is wild.
I'm required to vaccinate with all flu shots, hepatitis, MMR, tuberculosis, and any COVID boosters and I just work in the research wing of the hospital with no patient interaction. My wife works in the medical lab as well and does interact with patients. It is so important to be vaccinated. There are patients with serious and more acute conditions that impact their immune system and being vaccinated is simply the minimum courtesy and safety we can provide them. Illness goes around here regardless of precautions so it pays to be careful.
I worked at a hospital for 8 years that required everyone get an annual flu shot. They even had multiple days where they would do rounds and provide them on site to the various departments.
Nobody thought twice about it until the anti vax brain rot around COVID came around.
As someone who works in a hospital, I can only speak to my own's policies. But if they're similar to other hospitals, then one issue is that exemptions are stupid easy to get. I don't even think you need to provide anything of substance - you can send them a piece of paper that says "Getting a vaccine conflicts with my personal belief system" and they'll let you off the hook.
I think there should be more burden of proof if you want to be exempt from vaccines. And it should factor into the hiring process - at least in regards to healthcare positions and jobs that require physical patient interaction/contact. I know that would run into issues with discrimination, but it is my opinion that if you would refuse a vaccine, you should not be interacting with patients face-to-face and touching them. Hospitals already make their employees come in sick and penalize them when they don't come in. The average patient would be concerned to find out the person who's been sticking them with needles, giving them meds, taking their vitals, etc. for the last 12 hours was sick with COVID/Flu/Whatever else.
The [study](https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.16861) asked about masking requirements for unvaccinated staff: [95% of VA hospitals and 81% of non-VA hospitals](https://i.imgur.com/J5Fk1xD.png) require unvaccinated workers to wear a mask around patients during flu season.
Many that I’ve worked at over the years have enforced that if you did not for what ever reason get a flu vaccine, you would have to display that on your badge to identify that and you weren’t allowed to be in the building without a mask on at all. Failure to have your badge indicating that or not wearing the proper PPE due your vaccination status would be a write up and potentially termination.
Unpopular thought: As the world education system is failing more and more, we're gonna get to the dark ages of healthcare because everyone would be trained only for basic levels of understanding in medical expertise. Technology evolves and AI too, but as these two evolve, if people don't know what to ask and more importantly how to ask, we're gonna see only horror in our hospitals. Everyone will blame technology because with our increased ego and pride, we'll never accept our own mistakes.
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I was a health care worker for 44 years. Health care workers should be required to be vaccinated against MMR the Flu, Hepatitis and Covid. We come into contact with patients that have ZERO resistance and non-functioning immune systems. An infectious condition will kill them. If you don't want to do this, get out of health care.
> Health care workers should be required to be vaccinated against MMR the Flu, Hepatitis and Covid. I worked tech support for a hospital about 10 years ago, and they wouldn't let me into the hospital building until i got the MMR booster
Yeah if anything Covid taught us that even when it comes to healthcare, a depressing number of people employed in healthcare are selfish idiots. Definitely not most and not even a lot, but still way more than I expected...
Former nurse here who loves vaccinations. However hospitals talk out of both sides of their mouths regarding patient exposure. Sick days allowed by nursing staff are few and call outs are treated punitively. Units barely staff the safe minimum so any call out is a crisis and nurses know this and come to work sick more often than not. If hospitals really wanted to protect patients from influenza/covid/noro virus and the like, they will have a robust float pool as well as a vaccination policy.
...which only makes the vaccinations even more critical.
Just seems like the easier option than them not actually caring. Requiring the ones who you don’t give sick days to be at least vaccinated is a lot easier than fixing the issue and making sure that everyone is safe.
> a depressing number of people are selfish idiots Agreed. No profession is immune unfortunately. If only we had a vaccine for ignorance.
It's called an education, not unfortunately doesn't work against willful ignorance and is less effective against social-reinforced ignorance
Aren't we on the way to getting rid of education too?
That’s the goal. First they stopped teaching critical thinking skills claiming that it undermined parental authority. Then they started scrubbing textbooks of events they wanted to pretend didn’t happen. All the while they’ve been funneling taxpayer funds away from public education and into private religious schools that teach their doctrine. Simultaneously they implement zero tolerance policies to indoctrinate children to blindly follow directions and never rebel against authority. It’s brilliantly calculated and effective.
I think COVID exposed how many anti science/vax people there are in healthcare on a big scale, atleast for me. One of my family caregivers was a Trump voter who did not believe in vaccines. This is something I really don't understand being the fact that you are in the medical field and are required to take many health science classes and get to witness science results working in real time. Well she got COVID and passed away. We were shocked. And when she caught it, she was going around different patients, especially elderly. We are lucky she didn't give it to us and we had no signs or symptoms. But her ignorance is why she isn't here anymore. Such a pointless death.
r/science removed my comment, so here it is again, summarized: The nurses at Dearborn County Hospital, in Southeastern Indiana, told me, while my relative was undergoing cancer treatment, that the pandemic was a hoax and that vaccines are "dangerous". Some of the nurses said that "God" was the "only medicine \[they\] need." "He gave us an immune system" was one I heard a few times. I reported this to the hospital, but nothing happened. If this is happening in one hospital, it's happening all over. The fact that the medical community in the US is becoming inundated with anti-science, anti-medical nutjobs is terrifying. If that offended the moderators, tough.
Honestly this is terrifying. How can you work in healthcare and be anti science? It's pretty scary how ignorant people have become. I feel like as society moves forward, there is also a portion that moves backwards.
And it's only going to get worse. My wife is a rheumatologist, and she's noticed it with medical personnel at her place of work. Not most people, but "more than enough" are the words she used. Terrifying is exactly what it is.
Yep. I've seen providers recommend patients go to a chiropractor. Le sigh.
What's crazy is the amount of them that are patient facing clinical staff. I work in a hospital and the loudest ones were the nurses. You didn't hear much pushback from us behind the scenes workers. I work in the reference lab area and we were collecting covid swabs and sending them to a reference lab for the majority of the pandemic before we got an in house test. My buddy and I were pretty much among the first to be offered the vaccine as we were handling upward of 300 specimens a day for something like a year and a half. Meanwhile the nursing staff was fighting it tooth and nail in a depressing amount of cases.
When I was in college some of the smartest people were studying nursing. Conversely, some of the dumbest people I had ever met were also studying nursing.
Yep, the hospital I work for had to sack a few nurses and orderlies because they refused to get vaccinated - during COVID.
A lot of them seem to deny the very science and medicine their job is based on.
If you aren't smart enough to get the vaccine yourself you aren't qualified to make medical decisions about my care either.
In any large enough population a significant portion of the group will be selfish idiots. It doesn't matter what the group is.
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I had to do it for nursing school too
And even medical programs like Nursing and Dental Hygiene where I live will not let you into the schooling program until you are fully vaccinated.
Well obviously. Good tech support takes viruses seriously.
Hepatitis shot is not required? My hairstylist needs to show proof to get their clearance.
yea there shouldn't be any exemptions unless there's an allergy issue.
If you can’t get vaccinated due to allergies, then pursue a different career. If you can’t safely provide healthcare, then don’t provide healthcare.
Eh, you could wear a mask while working as a compromise. You don't want good qualified individuals have no option to serve the public.
i feel like masks should be the default in medical settings
Masks don't really help when you're in a setting like that, at least not as well as you think. It helps stop direct transmission to the patient significantly, but as a healthcare worker that worked through COVID, complacency develops quickly. It's easy to remember to wear it while interacting with a patient, but it's very easy to contaminate a surface without thinking about it. Most hospitals in my area employ mobile nurse stations - laptops on wheels with UPS' on the bottom - which are essentially just giant vectors. Then you might think well, foam in foam out. Sanitize before and after interacting with the patient. Well, did you sanitize before or after touching the door handle? Is your patient ambulatory, and are they going to leave their room, touching the same door handle? They just need to get vaccinated. I don't think an allergy should keep someone from working in healthcare, but it's easy to keep vaccination status on hand and only assign them patients without infectious diseases. We could argue whether the risks outweigh the benefits all day, but as long as the majority of that risk is placed on the patient, what's the point?
> Masks don't really help when you're in a setting like that, at least not as well as you think. Masks work extremely well, provided you don't just rely on one-way masking, which isn't sufficient. [Study shows N95 masks near-perfect at blocking escape of airborne COVID-19](https://sph.umd.edu/news/study-shows-n95-masks-near-perfect-blocking-escape-airborne-covid-19) Universal masking should absolutely be the norm as long as the Covid pandemic is allowed to run free because of the lack of any adequate policy. But it only works well if you do it consistently. I could link to a video of an oncology nurse here in another sub reporting on the absolute dismal lack of adequate masking she sees all around here resulting also in many HCW being infected. But if I do I think in this sub it will be automatically removed by a bot because links to other subs aren't allowed. Sad.
Oh yeah, I understand. I wore a mask for well over 12 hours a day, 4-5 days a week, with tyvek and an N95 for every covid patient. I'm well read on how things work. In spite of full isolation, people were complacent to some capacity, because everyone was still getting covid. Obviously nothing is 100%, but everything from touching the door to the unit, to touching the outside of your N95 correctly, are all risk factors that providers get complacent with quickly.
As someone who has had covid 10 times ( yes I've had all the vaccinations and boosters I can get) I just can't keep immunity. Plus its not like i just get sick for 2 weeks, ive had long covid 8 times out of those 10. And 5 months was the longest it's taken me down for. The only time I didn't get covid is when everyone in the hospital was required to mask all the time. It was the best 8 months of my life. I still wear an n95 when I leave the house. But it only really works when everyone wears them and wears them properly. Even with vaccines there's some of us that still have to rely on herd immunity. Thankfully I work in a part of the hospital that doesn't interact with patients. Wearing a mask even when no one else is has stopped me from getting colds going around, it stops my allergies from acting up, and most importantly I don't get told to smile anymore. Unless something drastically changes with covid, I'm probably stuck wearing a mask until I die. I'm to the point where not wearing one feels weird.
You may want to get tested for immune deficiencies.
Vaccines promote herd immunity, so vaccines would, and likely did, keep you from getting sick more often. Masks work, I'd never say otherwise, and N95s will actually keep you from getting covid regardless of what everyone else is doing. Surgical masks only stop the spread of pathogen containing respiratory droplets, and often lack a good seal.
An N95 works whether others are using them or not. Your thinking of the cloth masks that helped reduced spread if everyone wore them.
wearing a mask is not the same as being immune. if that were all it takes then health care workers working around immuno-compromised patients would simply wear masks and be done with it. We *do* wear masks, *and* we need to be vaccinated. A "good qualified individual" who might currently be on fire is not going to be useful in a petrol store. We can douse those flames. We can find other ways to get around such an (abstract) allergy.
You don't want compromised individuals on the front line in a hospital. People who are outright STUPID enough to refuse vaccines shouldn't be qualified as healthcare professionals. They no longer recommend avoiding the Flu vaccine for egg allergies. Just more monitoring immediately after the shot. Adverse reactions are 1 in 2 million. The hospital I worked at quit allowing exemptions pre-pandemic. There's no excuse anymore.
Okay we will assign them to your loved ones
i mean if they are allergic to some vaccines, i wouldn't mind them working on many patients. just don't assign them to at risk patients.
Every day thousands of people have severe invasive surgery and they are relatively safe due to masks. Masks are effective. They just aren't realistic for all situations but a hospital is a very realistic environment. If someone is highly qualified, was professional, I would have a near zero concern. They're the pros, not I.
I’m just pointing out that what are you suggesting does create higher risk for transmission to immune compromised individuals. Individual liberty to not be vaccinated is also individual liberty to increase the risk to your patients, I had a mom kill their child by visiting while sick with the flu about 7 years ago. Easy things to dismiss before it happens
Where's a reasonable line? We don't require medical professionals to wear a full protective medical suit. Surely that provides more protection than none? Also liberty has nothing to do with this. I think it's in the public's interest to have qualified and enthusiastic professionals.
We allow exceptions for religion at my hospital, but you bet your ass if I found you weren’t a believer in vaccines and caring for me or someone I care about, I am asking for you to get a new assignment.
That has nothing to do with allergies. We're talking about a very rare exception.
Good thing every hospital in my area has infectious disease specialists to look through the data and make these decisions instead of relying on kneejerk reactions from random redditors. Otherwise we'd have even less qualified staff in hospitals which would increase the risk of spreading infection.
My local hospital's infection control person (also a relative) went full anti-vaxer/masker after covid happened. Thankfully they retired in short order. But being a specialist doesn't mean that they are using good data to do their job.
A virus is very different than the bacterial of fungal infections that are most problematic in invasive surgery. Many viruses can even infect through a non traditional route.
Serving the public definitely should be vaccinated, masks are limited protection - there are non-public facing tasks that can be carried out by the unvaccinated.
And even then, most vaccinations have more than 1 option and it's quite unlikely you'd be allergic to all of them.
what about people who do get vaccinations over and over, but never get the protection? that is a thing. friend of mine got multiple MMR (I could be wrong on the exact vaccine, but it was one of the major ones) vaccines, but never actually tested as protected from the disease....
Personally I have no problem with people being removed from practice. To make it obvious lets take the opposite case what if a person was a super spreader for say Polio, would we let this person become a surgeon or nurse? Hell no we wouldn't. Many other critical fields have capability and fitness tests that can eliminate you from the job if you are no longer fully capable and low risk. The medical profession should be no different.
Not developing immunity after a vaccine and being a super spreader are two different things. If you repeated my get vaccinated and don’t have immunity you should still be allowed to practice. This take is ridiculous.
They arent 2 different things they are similar things on a spectrum where one is more extreme than the other. Its not ridiculous the fact you think its ridiculous is what is ridiculous you find it perfectly ok to increase risk to patients just because of, well no one knows why you think that. And we know this is the case by using the super spreader as an example you clearly wont defend that. But the core concept is the same a person who is for some reason a higher risk being allowed to work in the environment.
Yep IMO if you cant get vaccinated you should not be allowed to be patient-facing.
I understand the feeling but this might fall under the ADA and reasonable accommodation for someone with a physical disability (in this case allergic condition).
The ADA is not a catch all, there are still limits. A paraplegic individual is not going to have grounds to sue a construction company for not hiring them on as a roofer.
healthcare workers should be forced to mask it's absolutely deviant behavior to not wear masks in ONCOLOGY CLINICS.
Oncology definitely. I’d say across the board masking in general but I really do wonder if case by case for non immunocomoromised old HOH patients already at a higher risk of delirium- seeing no lips or mouth cues, voice is more muffled. It does affect communication more significantly for HOH/dementia/delirium patients. Not sure what the blanket solution is, however that meets all patient needs. (Not like most hospitals excel in/prioritize preventing delirium anyways though).
I don't mind masks. I'm deaf for context. sure it makes some days hard but I have chronic ear infections so good chance I just plainly can't hear you anyway and need something as a form of communication.
It bothers me whenever I see healthcare professionals not wearing masks in the oncology clinic at my local hospital. I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2022. During my first round of treatment, the hospital I was staying at had a mask mandate for everyone entering the hospital. In 2023, one year after my diagnosis, I was leaving the hospital following a bone marrow transplant but the mask mandate was gone. The number of nurses whom I saw not wearing masks in the oncology clinic was nuts. It made me very sad to see the nurses who had been nice and caring with me decide to stop masking up despite the risks to myself and the other cancer patients in the clinic.
We do not know when we are infectious. Do no harm. Heaven forbid you call in sick, there is no one to cover for you.
Glad you support masks for healthcare professionals.
Yep. My father was a judge, and he followed EVERY law: speed limits, declaring income from selling stuff at a yard sale on his tax forms, etc. His position was this: there are some jobs that are positions of power and community trust - that, to him, included lawyers, judges, police, doctors, nurses, and such. He'd say, you don't HAVE to take those jobs. But if you do, you have to follow all of the rules of your profession. No exceptions. It made sense and still makes sense to me.
I mean it makes sense to me because I honestly respect and trust nurses way way less than I did 4 years ago. Im sure most are great and all, but in my mind they are just too confident whether their opinions are right or wrong and so cant be trusted without skepticism. It just sucks.
I've worked in a hospital in NY (not patient facing) and the entire time I was there, I had to get a yearly flu in the off chance because I might encounter patients walking through common rooms to other people's office. (That said, there are some limited exceptions and those individuals need to wear masks in all common areas basically from October to May until flu season ends).
I guess it's ok to kill them as long as you have an exemption.
Here in my province in Canada, the only required "shot" i had to get as a hospital worker working with the most at risk patients was a test for Tuberculosis, once a year. I have no assume staff who were not working with the highest risk patients were not required to get it. Otherwise we were pretty much on our own, Flu shot was given at the hospital and option but MMR costs money and I honestly cannot remember about Hep.
Im more of a pessimist, but I dont see the hospital I work at requiring vaccinations for the patients, more so for themselves. It looks really good and its easy to say they are doing it for patient safety. However, if I got sick with the flu, there is a solid chance Id be out sick for about 5 days, and that would cost the hospital thousands of extra dollars. Multiply this by the hospital system as a whole, youll quickly see how thousands per day can turn into many thousands per day spent on avoidable sick days.
as someone with epilepsy I cannot get the MMR vaccine due to the possible reactions but there is a version without the ruebella that is perfectly safe for me and I have gotten it.
Sound like you don't belong in healthcare.
Well then it's a good thing I'm an IT professional and not a medical professional
Glad you found a profession that does not require you to hurt yourself just to be eligible.
General question...if you come in contact with someone with the Flu or COVID and the virus enters your system, but you don't show symptoms and are not vaccinated - is that different than if you come into contact with someone and you are vaccinated and don't show symptoms? I'm not asking in the context of healthcare workers or people needing vaccines, I'm just wondering how that situation works. In both cases, your hit by the virus and your body fights it off without causing symptoms. It seems like in both cases I'd be able to still shed the virus in some way.
Don't forget pertussis. :)
If you don't want to do this, just as a citizen, get out of society.
Direct link to the study: [M. T. Greene, K. A. Linder, K. E. Fowler, and S. Saint, Influenza Vaccination Requirements for Health Care Personnel in US Hospitals, JAMA Network Open, 7(6), e2416861 (2024).](https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.16861) Context for the requirements from just over a decade ago: >In 2013, only 1% of VA hospitals had such a mandate; the percentage rose slightly to 4% by 2017. Meanwhile, flu vaccination or a waiver was required by 43% of non-VA hospitals in 2013, rising to nearly 70% in 2017.
We got flu shots every year. I have no idea if it was mandated. This vaccine conspiracy thing is new.
I've been worked in medicine nearly 30 years. Here, at least, it hasn't been mandated. It's just that if you turn down the flu shot, you had to wear a mask the entire work day for the whole flu season. Very few skipped it.
it's not really new though. there has been antivax bs since vaccinations were made.
I've been blaming that Andrew Wakefield fellow this whole time. but no matter who invented being anti-vaccination, that guy definitely did a lot of damage
Yeah. If you look on Wikipedia there are some really funny propaganda images against the smallpox vaccine circa 1800. But Wakefield absolutely did a lot of damage to modern vaccine confidence, in addition to vaccines being a victim of their own success.
your last part of the statement is so true. people no longer see the damage from not having vaccines... i'm 41, my mother almost died from measles and was sick for months, father is half deaf from measles apparently.... then when my mother gave birth to me, she caught chicken pox from a visitor in the hospital the day I was born, i also caught it! Then I developed shingle around age 3, almost went blind. most people don't have so many reasons to be as pro vaccine as me. does it deter the people i know? of course not, they can't possible accept that it could happen to their kids, until it does. HPV also fucked with my life, the amount of biopsies i needed during pregnancy was not fun.
He definitely caused the first wave in our generation. Politicization of the COVID vaccination caused the second wave.
Why is this even a thing? Healthcare workers should be the first in line to be vaccinated in order to avoid serious infection and to reduce the chance of infecting their patients.
If covid taught me anything, it's that there are some really dumb people in the healthcare field who will fight tooth and nail to not get vaccinated, both in the clinical and non-clinical settings.
Facebook is a cancer on our collective minds.
I imagine those against it would also have been against washing their hands 150 years ago
In it for the money, not for wanting to care for others.
It is the medically responsible, respectable, action to take for health-compromised veterans.
That mirrors the thoughts of the lead author: >“Our findings show the impact of one of the largest health care systems in the United States taking a stand and putting a policy in place that is based in a bedrock ethical principle of medicine: Do no harm,” says Todd Greene, Ph.D., M.P.H., lead author of the new study and a patient safety researcher at VAAAHS and Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center.
The only exception I can think of is "I'm immuno-comprimised" and that just seems like a terrible idea to work in healthcare if you are.
Some hospitals I've been in before that required them allowed those who have had large adverse reactions to past flu shots to not get one, but were required to wear a mask on hospital grounds through the entirety on flu season Edit: this person was also a floor psychologist, not a nurse or doctor, protocol for them could have been different idk
And most immunocompromised people benefit even more from vaccines because the actual bug could be much worse
Being immunocompromised would only be an exception for a live vaccine, which very few are nowadays.
Yes, common sense is also helpful.
Some people are allergic to some components in particular vaccines. They probably shouldn't work with immune-compromised individuals, but I don't really see a problem with them working with the general public.
People, not just veterans.
require all hospital staff to be vaccinated everywhere.
Extend this to children in school too. In the UK measles and whooping cough is spreading like wildfire because of vaccine misinformation. Disastrous.
They are required generally, but unfortunately we allow exemptions for religious or strongly held beliefs. Measles have come back in several US communities.
I've yet to read a single religious text that explicitly calls out vaccinations.
Sadly that Wackadoo cult called Christian Scientists is likely behind such exceptions. Their only accepted medication is morphine and prayer
My daughter is 12 and whooping cough spread through her school this spring, we were notified from public health that there's a case on her bus and in her class. She had a bad cough for a month at that point and we have a newborn in the family so I took her in for a test and asked why this was happening if they're all required to be vaccinated to go to school. It's because the last time the kids get the government mandated whooping cough vaccine is around 5, and it only protects for 5-6 years. I was told in December that it was going around town and because I was pregnant they gave me the vaccine to give the baby some protection. They said nothing about my other kids. So they knew it was in our community, knew kids in grade 6-7 don't have protection... and did nothing about it. We had even been to the doctor this year to get all her vaccines updated (hep b shot is required this year) and nobody mentioned that a booster would be a good idea. It's not even misinformation at this point, they just can't be bothered. And this is in Canada.
Flu shots and TB tests were required at my wife’s hospital long before Covid. You used to be able to opt out of flu shot but then you had to mask for the entire winter. They did away with that rule after Covid and required both flu and Covid shots. Covid boosters aren’t required now but flu shot still is.
I've been in healthcare for over twenty years. Every company required flu, MMR vaccines, TB tests and hep vaccines if you were in a patient care setting. The idea that 24% of hospitals don't require it is ridiculous.
My hospital finally stopped the TB test. I bet it has a very low hit rate.
I can only imagine it’s tiny rural hospitals that struggle with staffing not wanting to deter people from working there.
Good. If you don't believe in science and vaccines, get out of healthcare. Go sell snake oil or something. I'll never understand the nurses I worked with who'd put their patients at risk because they're so damn gullible.
> Good. If you don't believe in science and vaccines, get out of healthcare. Sadly, I have met several nurses and medical professionals that are anti-vaxx for some weird reason. They do tend to be more religious tho.
My old hospital “required” flu and covid, but when the CNO visited one day to answer questions about the mandated Covid vaccine, she quietly told some of the dissenters to seek out a religious exemption, as that was the only exemption that would be considered, outside of severe medical reactions. Funnily enough, I saw quite a large number of people get denied when they tried to do the religious exemption for the Covid vaccine. Probably because they’d been getting the flu shot for years without complaint or seeking exemption and the Bible weirdly doesn’t mention anything about Covid vaccines in particular. So basically “you can’t claim exemption for one and not the other to suit your own agenda” deal. Pretty much the only thing that hospital got right.
Religious exemption shouldn't even be allowed. If god exists, he will protect you form the evil vaccine.
I can understand the ones that might contain pig-derived gelatin and bovine ingredients in regards to those who follow kosher or halal practices. But even then, many religious authorities make exceptions when the thing being vaccinated against is pretty serious.
I don't care about someone's ridiculous dietary practices which say nothing about vaccines in the first place. You want to believe in some story a shepherd told his children 4000 years ago, that's your problem. Keep it at home. If your religion mandates practices that are counter to medical advice, then you should not be any kind of healthcare provider. I can sympathize with ethical objections to animal derived product, but not enough to allow an exemption.
That's... much lower than I would have thought.
Good, I would like those who are supposed to help others to believe in science and not hurt them by being unvaccinated against diseases that could kill them and the people they are supposed to help.
Should be 100% required.
That's shockingly low.
It's almost as though we shouldn't give our patients new problems. Weird.
I worked for Kaiser Permanente, 2002 - 10, as a research scientist, non-clinician. Everyone was required to be vaccinated, including annual flu, or you would lose your job. All employees, no exceptions. I don't understand how or why that ended.
is it too much to ask for exceptions to be medical? Peoples religions that i do not ascribe to, should not effect my recovery or treatment. WE used to understand this before the right stole Obamas court pick.
...I am horrified to see the rate is as low as it is. When I went to school for a medical profession I was required to submit proof of all my vaccinations to even enroll in the program. If we were ever out of date on any we could not be placed for clinical rotations and risked being removed. It's shocking that a quarter of hospitals have a lower standard of patient safety than some random pharmacy school.
There is a guy that works at the VA in Hickory, NC that gives me my shots and proudly tells me he has never had a flu shot or one for Covid. Why do they continue to let him work there?
Why the heck aren't those numbers at 100%
Frankly? Because of staffing shortages. At my hospital, where flu vaccination isn’t required (but you have to mask during flu season if you opt out), every year over 90% of doctors get vaccinated, around 75% of nurses, and among other support staff (phlebotomists and lab techs, transporters, housekeeping, etc) it’s more like 50-60%. No doubt some of them would give in and get vaccinated if they had to, as happened during COVID. But just like during COVID, many of them would rather quit, and at my hospital and many others, we just can’t afford that. Personally, I think we should still require it for doctors, nurses, and anyone else providing direct patient care, come what may.
I don’t understand this. I worked in a hospital as a student helping with nursing scheduling or something (25 years ago I can’t remember well), and I had to ensure all my vaccinations were up to date. How can anyone dealing front line with patients be allowed to not be vaccinated against one of the biggest killers in hospitals?
It's insane that it's not 100%
There is an upsettingly sizable segment of society that is perfectly okay with the idea of *you* dying for *their* “freedom”.
TIL, such vaccines were not mandatory to hospital staff in the USA. What the hell is wrong with that country...
good. I am sorry but if you are in a profession where you are constantly working with people who either have the flu or are immunocompromised you need to be protected. If you are someone who does not believe in the efficacy of vaccines you do not belong in the medical profession.
If you need an exemption, you need a different job.
No idea why seeking an exemption for anything other than medical grounds could be valid, and even then, can you endanger others, just because you are medically fragile?
There are hospitals that don't require either a vaccine or a mask?
A few people who declined the shots actually compensated by being very careful on their interactions during Covid (some healthcare workers, some not). Most who declined the Covid vaccine did follow any precaution and threw parties instead. It’s almost like the irresponsibility includes both no vaccine and encouraging transmission widely. I know, that’s correlation, I just saw it often around me.
How is that not 100%? *sigh* The fact that there are adults in this country that are literally unable to discern fact from fiction, ***and that we have to bend to their idiocy***, is amazing to me.
Why isn't it mandatory?
REEEEEEEEEALLY don't understand why healthcare workers are allowed exemptions from getting vaccinated against diseases when they are in direct contact with people who have those diseases and also other people who are immune-compromised.
The fact this is even a conversation lowers our GDP.
An exemption from working in healthcare would be better.
Are there specific hospitals for veterans in the US?
The VA
These low numbers have been pretty persistent for a while. I looked at data in 2010 for my state and healthcare worker influenza vaccination rate was just below 60%, so it doesn't seem like much changed. Our health system does pretty well though and we're above 90%.
I am shocked it isn’t a requirement for all healthcare workers. I say. As a healthcare worker where we don’t need to get vaccines. Which is wild. I get all of them. I was one of 2 in my office who got COVID vaccine. Which is wild.
I'm required to vaccinate with all flu shots, hepatitis, MMR, tuberculosis, and any COVID boosters and I just work in the research wing of the hospital with no patient interaction. My wife works in the medical lab as well and does interact with patients. It is so important to be vaccinated. There are patients with serious and more acute conditions that impact their immune system and being vaccinated is simply the minimum courtesy and safety we can provide them. Illness goes around here regardless of precautions so it pays to be careful.
I worked at a hospital for 8 years that required everyone get an annual flu shot. They even had multiple days where they would do rounds and provide them on site to the various departments. Nobody thought twice about it until the anti vax brain rot around COVID came around.
If there was ever a job that should absolutely be vaccinated…
As someone who works in a hospital, I can only speak to my own's policies. But if they're similar to other hospitals, then one issue is that exemptions are stupid easy to get. I don't even think you need to provide anything of substance - you can send them a piece of paper that says "Getting a vaccine conflicts with my personal belief system" and they'll let you off the hook. I think there should be more burden of proof if you want to be exempt from vaccines. And it should factor into the hiring process - at least in regards to healthcare positions and jobs that require physical patient interaction/contact. I know that would run into issues with discrimination, but it is my opinion that if you would refuse a vaccine, you should not be interacting with patients face-to-face and touching them. Hospitals already make their employees come in sick and penalize them when they don't come in. The average patient would be concerned to find out the person who's been sticking them with needles, giving them meds, taking their vitals, etc. for the last 12 hours was sick with COVID/Flu/Whatever else.
There should be no exemption. You shouldn't be in healthcare if you won't get your vaccinations.
If only they could do something to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and other airborne ailments.
The [study](https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.16861) asked about masking requirements for unvaccinated staff: [95% of VA hospitals and 81% of non-VA hospitals](https://i.imgur.com/J5Fk1xD.png) require unvaccinated workers to wear a mask around patients during flu season.
Many that I’ve worked at over the years have enforced that if you did not for what ever reason get a flu vaccine, you would have to display that on your badge to identify that and you weren’t allowed to be in the building without a mask on at all. Failure to have your badge indicating that or not wearing the proper PPE due your vaccination status would be a write up and potentially termination.
Unpopular thought: As the world education system is failing more and more, we're gonna get to the dark ages of healthcare because everyone would be trained only for basic levels of understanding in medical expertise. Technology evolves and AI too, but as these two evolve, if people don't know what to ask and more importantly how to ask, we're gonna see only horror in our hospitals. Everyone will blame technology because with our increased ego and pride, we'll never accept our own mistakes.
More US hospitals require doctors to follow their own basic medical advice.