Pregnant nurse FIRED for refusing risky flu vaccine

Maluhia
Obviously, there is clearly a known risk.

Actually, no. It's a category C medication, meaning that there aren't sufficient tests in pregnant lab animals to know if there is an effect or not, but that the company is worried there may be, or that they've seen anecdotal cases of negative reactions and don't have enough data to know. Lacking any definitive studies on this particular vaccine, Sanofi decided to make it a C medication, and the doctor is on his own if he wants to do it, Sanofi disclaims any statement of it being ok or no, but recommends that they do not give it.

There are category B influenza vaccines that have never shown any adverse reactions, though. So it might be something in particular about the Fluzone vaccine.

At any rate, if she's pregnant and has some history of miscarriage, if just getting the vaccine is a problem, the hospital is probably thinking of what happens if she actually gets the flu working in their facility. It's not in their best interest to let an employee with a history of problem pregnancies catch something at work.

reply to post by boncho

Ok, maybe the MRSA deaths were not comparable, but MRSA damages bodies it does not kill, so it is a danger nonetheless.

Also, you completely ignored the deaths from mistakes and incompetence. My point is they are making an example out of this woman, who has mitigating circumstances, to prevent deaths, is ridiculous. In that case, they also need to fire all their incompetent nurses and staff.

Some other type of accommodations could have been made.

reply to post by Maluhia

she did not want to out the health and safety of her BABY at risk.

But OK to kill other people's mom,dad, son, daughter, baby? Kinda selfish don't you think?

If she doesn't want the risk, then stay at home.

I wonder how you would feel if you 5 yrs old son/daughter in ER with fatal immune system. Send in this nurse. I wanna see the decisions you would make.

It seems she wants to put others at risk for money.


1) She is a nurse, they even teach you this in school, your priority is the patients.
2) Nurses need to be protected and disease free. They get tested.
3) She knows about preventative vaccines healthcare professional need to take.
4) Take sick day, trust me Hospitals WANTS you to take these days.
5) She could work in other departments, there are areas where she can work without putting patients at risk.

So many people her would not be defending her if she was taking care of your loved ones.


This is not black and while.

Maluhia
A lot of,you arguing for the fact that she should have gotten the flu shot because she is potentially putting others at risk seem to have missed the point that she is pregnant. The shot itself has a warning about giving it to pregnant women - she did not want to out the health and safety of her BABY at risk.

she should take a leave of absence while pregnant. I get the flu shot every year, haven't had the flu for years, nor any side affects.

reply to post by luciddream


She's selfish for wanting to protect her baby?
Would that not mean that those who think it's ok to risk her child to protect their own are selfish?
The hospital should have some policy in place to protect it's workers.
This is a huge issue really, most nurses are still women, but if the job turns out to be one where you have to put your own baby at risk to protect others, what kind of women would do that?

OtherSideOfTheCoin
reply to post by Pardon?

 

In the UK you have to have certain vaccines depending on your area of work.

So for example if you work in Infectious disease's you must be vaccines against pretty much everything (including flu)

If you work in trauma or in theater you need to be vaccinated against blood born viruses

Most also require MMR, Tetanus and BCG (although I have never been required to get the flu shot)

But its a issue of patient safety.

we are trained using a strong evidence base and the evidence overwhelming support for the validity of vaccines.

If i did not get my hep b jab for example and got a needle stick there is a very small chance i could wind up with Heb-B. So there i am running around with this nasty blood born virus in my system looking after your dear old mum when one day i go to give her her daily shot of Fragmin and the needle slips, it goes through my skin and into hers.

She has now been exposed to my hep-B.

And believe me even though the changes of contracting a virus from a needle is minute but the worry that it can cause you if you have ever been pricked by a needle you know to be dirty is not worth it.

So it take shots for everything and never had a problem because i have been in that situation where i have been waiting to find out if the junky had hep or HIV

flu is the same,

would you really feel comfortable sitting in a ICU with your dear old mum and i start coughing and complaining about how i have "just got over a touch of the flu".

of course you wouldn't, you would probably demand another nurse until I had been clear for 48 hours (which is standard policy anyway) because you would know that my little bout of flu could be the think that kills your dear old mum.

All nurses going into the profession know they we all know that we have to get the jabs as a matter of patient safety, we also know there are some exceptions but in general we need them.

I agree that what has happened to this nurse sucks but at the same time i can understand it.

I think you may have misread or misinterpreted my post.
I think we're both on the same side of the coin.

reply to post by jimmyx


As I said some other type of arrangements could have been made - like a leave of absence. She did offer to wear a mask, which I know some hospitals find acceptable. Having her review charts or do paperwork, also an option.

The point is, Firing seems extreme and not a healthy precedent to set. It's happening many places - "do this or you lose your job. - well I need my job so...."

The heavy handedness of it becoming more the norm - that's my issue.

Nurses should never be forced to put their baby at risk by having a shot that could cause harm. and no employer should ask it, especially not a HOSPITAL.
Doesn't it go against the grain of what they are there for.
Surely there should be provision for the babies of nurses to be protected, by moving them to another area until it is safe for the jab?
You ask how people would react over a nurse coughing, well how would you react if you new your nurse had put her own baby at risk for her JOB, it would make me look at her differently.

Maluhia
reply to post by boncho

 

Ok, maybe the MRSA deaths were not comparable, but MRSA damages bodies it does not kill, so it is a danger nonetheless.

Also, you completely ignored the deaths from mistakes and incompetence. My point is they are making an example out of this woman, who has mitigating circumstances, to prevent deaths, is ridiculous. In that case, they also need to fire all their incompetent nurses and staff.

Some other type of accommodations could have been made.

Simple hygiene procedures prevent MRSA very well indeed.
The numbers of infections in hospitals in the UK has dropped dramatically since alcohol gel dispensers were put at the entrances to wards and departments.
This is a simple preventative measure that works.
If nurses are seen not adhering to this, they will be disciplined.

Flu can be transmitted in an aerosol like manner by coughing and/or sneezing.
Simple hygiene helps but doesn't stop it spreading.
Having the flu jab stops you getting the flu and spreading it.
This is a simple preventative measure that works.
If nurses refuse a mandatory jab, they will be disciplined.

Mistakes and incompetence are unfortunately real but thankfully quite rare.
There are hundreds of measures in place to ensure they don't happen and more and more are put into place every year which are demonstrable.
These are simple preventative measures that work.
If nurses refuse to stick by these, they will be disciplined.

There is far more evidence to suggest that a pregnant woman who gets the flu will do more harm to her foetus than will happen from having the flu shot.
So, looking the evidence, she has NO mitigating circumstances.

If she is incapable of understanding the empirical and proven evidence put to her about the safety of the jab and still point-blank refuses to have it then not only is she incapable of looking after patients but her whole competency level has to be brought into question.

The bottom line is that she is not fit to do her job so why let her carry on doing it?

WilsonWilson
Nurses should never be forced to put their baby at risk by having a shot that could cause harm. and no employer should ask it, especially not a HOSPITAL.
Doesn't it go against the grain of what they are there for.
Surely there should be provision for the babies of nurses to be protected, by moving them to another area until it is safe for the jab?
You ask how people would react over a nurse coughing, well how would you react if you new your nurse had put her own baby at risk for her JOB, it would make me look at her differently.

Why is it putting the baby at risk?
There's NO evidence to suggest that at all.

reply to post by Pardon?


If the companies are not allowed or don't want to test on pregnant women, then how can you say that there is no risk?
You don't know that you are assuming, and you may be happy to put your baby at risk on an assumption, not everybody is.

reply to post by WilsonWilson


Um... NO, she has OPTIONS!

OPTION TO NOT TO GO TO WORK!

It ends there.

If she is pregnant, the don't go to frking work and take early maternity leave with no extra pay.

Wow, more idiocy from the 'YOU NEED TO GET A SHOT TO PROTECT ME, ME, ME' crowd.

1. The flu shot only partially protects, and this is up for debate, from a few of the possible predicted bugs that might be going around. That it in the process totally whacks a person's natural immunity is not exactly new news.
2. The shot can have unforeseen side effects (really effects) and we've seen in the past how horrific they can be. The vaccine manufacturers have been made non-liable for any and all of these effects, which should tell you something. They can't even stand by their own product.
3. Hospitals are a hotbed of all sorts of germs and virii and you can't protect against the personnel spreading them around unless everyone works in Level IV biocontainment suits.
4. You HAVE NO RIGHT to expect your 'caretakers' to be sterile, which is what you're actually expecting here. Or they should quit their jobs.
5. Based on your 'well quit your job then' attitude, you wouldn't have a caretaker at all. NONE. There isn't a hospital in the world that doesn't have dozens of unfilled nursing slots, because people don't want to do this job, and you're advocating well trained people willing to do the job to just up and quit, cuz they're educated enough to know that the flu shot is a bandage on a gaping wound at best, and a dangerous hoax at worst?

Wow, just wow. Get educated. Your utter idiotic demands (in a society you're pretending is free) is criminal insanity.

Meanwhile, stay the hell home the next time you, poor baby, think you're sick. All the medical personnel are sick of your whining and bringing your germs into their workplace. Stay home and croak with your germs that weren't put into obeisance by your precious flu shot.

reply to post by signalfire


Well said - "a bandage on a gaping wound" - was part of the point I was trying to make.

signalfire
Wow, more idiocy from the 'YOU NEED TO GET A SHOT TO PROTECT ME, ME, ME' crowd.

Really? Is that what you see conveyed here?

signalfire
Meanwhile, stay the hell home the next time you, poor baby, think you're sick. All the medical personnel are sick of your whining and bringing your germs into their workplace. Stay home and croak with your germs that weren't put into obeisance by your precious flu shot.

No .. no ... no. When you get sick, by all means come on down to the hospital. We're gonna stick a large gauge needle into a vein and pump you full of all kinds of goop to keep you from dying. Not sure what the side affects of that stuff are ... but it costs a LOT more so it must be good for you ... and at least you don't have to worry about being vaccinated.

Trust me ... a flu shot is well worth the inconvenience. The doc's not gonna give you one if it's gonna put you at risk.

Pardon?
Flu can be transmitted in an aerosol like manner by coughing and/or sneezing.
Simple hygiene helps but doesn't stop it spreading.
Having the flu jab stops you getting the flu and spreading it.
This is a simple preventative measure that works.
If nurses refuse a mandatory jab, they will be disciplined.

The nurse offered to wear a mask which would have prevented the spreading via coughing and sneezing.

Pardon?
There is far more evidence to suggest that a pregnant woman who gets the flu will do more harm to her foetus than will happen from having the flu shot.
So, looking the evidence, she has NO mitigating circumstances.

But you are not definitely going to catch the flu if you don't get a flu shot, so it's not like you are choosing one over the other, wheras if you get the shot you have definite exposure to that.

Pardon?
If she is incapable of understanding the empirical and proven evidence put to her about the safety of the jab and still point-blank refuses to have it then not only is she incapable of looking after patients but her whole competency level has to be brought into question.

What evidence? The manufacturers clearly state that no studies have been done on pregnant women or even pregnant animals.

I have done a lot of reading on this (I am pregnant). There are studies that have been done that show certain flu shots from previous years appear to be safe in that there has been no apparent increased risk of immediate effects on the fetus (i.e deformity or stillbirth) but nothing longer term. They also don't factor in the different shots on the market or that they are different every single year.

I was reading the other day about the Pandemrix 2009-10 (that year only) jab given in Europe has now been proven to have triggered or caused narcolepsy in children who took it. I sure am glad I didn't agree to have that one whilst pregnant or otherwise.

reply to post by Snarl

The doc's not gonna give you one if it's gonna put you at risk.

Her doctor recommended that she NOT get the shot.

Clearly needed like if you work in the health industry ? If you're a nurse and could be exposed risking your baby to the flu ? Is that possibly what they mean by only give to a pregnant woman if it's clearly needed? They do give flu meds to people over two weeks old . Two weeks. Fourteen days.

While I think firing here was very extreme, I will say that if you work in any kind of health care profession, you have to expect that you will be asked or ordered to take vaccinations at some time in your line of work. So, if you are unable or unwilling to do that, you should not work in any line of work that could bring you into contact with pathogens and people who could be very vulnerable to those pathogens (or carrying them). So, was she a difficult employee?

And the vaccine is schedule C, meaning that the company did not specifically test it in pregnant animals. This is done both to save money and to pacify animal rights groups who hate thought of any kind of animal testing. This means that if you are pregnant and take the vaccine ... Congrats! You become part of the test group which is why my husband generally does not opt (or advise us to opt) for vaccines he isn't forced to take or doesn't see a need to take. Making this schedule C for pregnant women really means no more than that they don't know and are looking to CYA because if anyone gets it and has a problem, she may turn around and blame them whether the vaccine caused the problem or not.

And no matter how safe the vaccine may or may not be, there is always a risk.

That being said, mandatory vaccinations in jobs with potential pathogen exposure are par for the course. My husband has been vaccinated against so many things in his career that he's probably well exceeded the expected average human vaccine dosage by now, but he works with lots of nasty things that can either kill you or make you wish you were dead for a very long time. He's even had rabies vaccinations.

Reading through the replies, it seems many from the "land of the free" (rolls eyes) think flu shots should be mandatory.
In Edmonton there was a small flu outbreak. No one is critical or near death.

The news stated 4 patients and 12 nurses came down with H1N1 so far.
Flu shots are not required for health care workers in Canada, about 40% of hospital staff received them.
With only a 60% effectiveness, they (our powers that be) have said they're not going to make them mandatory, wearing a mask will suffice.

I've never heard the US news ever state that the flu shot isn't very effective, or to even suggest that people eat their veggies, exercise, and take their Vitamin D.
???

I don't think the mandatory flu shots are really about keeping the population as healthy as possible or they would be suggesting other healthy measures as well, like a healthier lifestyle.

I've never, ever had a suggestion from a doctor up here to have a flu shot...