- If we're going to force anyone to get a flu shot for
the sake of public health it should be people who come into contact with
kids: child care workers, burger flippers, toy store clerks, bus drivers,
grandparents. Even other kids.
-
- See, practically every time my 3-year-old daughter goes
to church, to the neighbour's, to grandma and grandpa's, or to a McDonald's
Playland she comes down with something. And passes it on to me. And her
dad. And anyone else within sneezing distance. (The cats, miraculously,
have been spared. Damn them.)
-
- We should then force Type A co-workers who won't stay
home when they're sick to get the needle. And methinks that would pretty
much eliminate the flu.
-
- But only one group of people is required by law to get
vaccinated: paramedics. Which is odd. Because I've had the flu plenty of
times, but I've never met a paramedic.
-
- Understandably, Toronto's paramedics are fighting the
legal requirement from the Ontario Health Ministry to get the shot (as
of yesterday) or get suspended. They held a protest in Toronto last
Thursday,
then attended a rally in North Bay for paramedic Bill Kotsopoulos, who
was suspended Dec. 22 for refusing to be vaccinated.
-
- The union representing almost 900 paramedics said 90%
hadn't yet had their shots. Let's hope the ministry, in its flu fervour,
doesn't suspend them all. Or any of them.
-
- Because most of us aren't going to get the flu from a
paramedic. We'll get it from a friend, family member or co-worker. If
public
health is the overriding issue, we should all be forced to be vaccinated.
But I doubt we want to go there.
-
- There's the argument that paramedics deal with sick
people
whose immune systems are down and might be more susceptible to infection.
So why aren't all doctors, nurses and health care workers required by law,
and not just their office policies and procedures, to get the shot?
-
- But there's a simple (some might say common sense)
solution
that sidesteps the shot: tell health care workers to stay home when they're
sick, whether they've got a cold (for which there is no vaccination) or
something else.
-
- Trouble is, the federal health ministry's National
Advisory
Committee on Immunization doesn't seem to think people can be trusted to
stay home. The advisory committee recommends all health care workers be
forced to be immunized (provincial and regional bodies ultimately make
that decision).
-
- Why?
-
- From the committee's statement on the flu shot for the
2000-2001 season: "In the absence of contraindications, refusal of
health care workers to be immunized implies failure in their duty of care
to their patients. Studies have demonstrated that HCWs who are ill with
influenza frequently continue to work."
-
- Yikes. Kind of harsh, don't you think?
-
- The study in question found that 59% of British health
care workers who had the flu virus didn't know it and continued to work,
"potentially transmitting infection to their patients."
-
- Well, did they or didn't they? If the flu they'd
contracted
was at such a low level they didn't know they had it (unlike any flu I've
ever had), maybe they didn't transmit it.
-
- The statement goes on to say absenteeism as a result
of the flu "results in excess economic costs and in some cases,
potential
endangerment of health care delivery due to scarcity of replacement
workers."
-
- Aha! We've finally found the cause of the health care
crisis: unvaccinated paramedics! Somebody call Allan Rock!
-
- I guess I have more faith in our paramedics to do right
by their patients.
-
- Bottom line: people shouldn't be forced to put something
into their bodies that they don't want, that may not work (70%-90%
effective),
that has side effects (soreness, fever, muscle pain) and risks, however
small (Guillain-Barre syndrome, a nerve disorder causing paralysis of limbs
and breathing muscles).
-
- Most health care workers could probably get the shot
without incident. But would you want to be the one in a gazillion for whom
prevention - which you were ordered to get - was worse than the
disease?
-
- Suspend workers who come to work sick. But don't suspend
them for refusing a shot when they're healthy.
-
- ___
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- Marianne Meed Ward, a freelance writer with an interest
in social and ethical issues, appears Mondays. Her e-mail
is:pward@interlog.com
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- http://www.canoe.ca/home.html
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