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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU re Flu Jab for healthcare professionals

181 replies

Libitina · 07/12/2016 20:05

My Trust is now asking all managers to provide a list of who has had the jab and who hasn't in their department? They have also stated that if we have not had the jab and then contract flu, we will be invited to speak to the chief nurse of the Trust. They offer prize draws as an incentive, use peer pressure to get people to comply and blackmail by stating the sequin payment the Trust will get for a specific percentage of staff being innoculated will "pay for X amount of nurses" that I know we will never actually see.

AIBU to tell them to mind their own business?

OP posts:
HoopsandEverything · 07/12/2016 20:58

I hate the fact it gives you the burny sensation for weeks (now) afterwards.

I had flu last year so I had mine this year, but no one warned me that I'd feel like I had burning all over me for weeks. I am not sure if I will have it next year now though.

ladyjadey · 07/12/2016 21:00

My trust was heavy handed about this. Bullying tone in emails etc. I refused to have it and wouldn't be bullied. As a young, fit, healthy person it was unnecessary.

Guess what?

I got the flu. Not a heavy cold, not off colour for a few days- the proper flu. So out of it I couldn't lift my head, slept all day for a full week, aching through every bone, couldn't even concentrate to watch tv let alone read a book. Since then (about 4 years ago) I have literally banged on locked doors for my free flu jab. I have never been so ill. What would that have done to a vulnerable person?

I really don't agree with the bullying though.

SpeckledyBanana · 07/12/2016 21:03

Healthcare workers may transmit illness to patients even if they are mildly infected

This is the scary bit IMO. Staff can be infected, think they have a nasty cold, keep working and spread the virus freely.

HoopsandEverything · 07/12/2016 21:03

I don't think it's fair to force you, and I don't think it's fair to force you to disclose reasons if you can't have it. But, then they are trying to hit quotas... and protect vulnerable people... So, tough one really.

If you have a severe reaction to it, are they going to pay compensation because it was their decision / bullying that you had it?

PacificDogwod · 07/12/2016 21:06

Well, yes, clumsily done by your trust so if you object to the methods YANBU.

But YABU if you object to every HCP being expected to get the flu vac.
I think there should be an obligation unless there was a medical reason not to vaccinate (and Occupational Health would have to step up and make those assessments - oh wait, Occ Health for NHS worker is woefully underresourced Hmm)

IcedVanillaLatte · 07/12/2016 21:08

Anyone who is vulnerable would surely have had the vaccine themselves., so unlikely to pick it up via an uninoculsted NHS staff member. And if they did do then that shows the vaccine is ineffective.

Not how vaccination programmes work. Some of those vulnerable can't be immunised. And vaccines are never 100% effective so yes, some people will have the jab and be infected anyway. How is that a reason to not get inoculated?

I'm a bit hardcore about this, but I strongly believe nobody should be forced to have ANY treatment they don't want. Which is why I'd be happy with a system where anyone who works with vulnerable patients and is able to get vaccinated had the right to take unpaid leave throughout flu season rather than have the vaccination.

Trifleorbust · 07/12/2016 21:11

It is a violation of a person's rights to make their employment conditional on vaccination. I accept that there is a greater risk of unvaccinated staff passing on the virus, but the answer is to offer it to the vulnerable on a wider basis, not to insist that healthcare professionals have it. They have the same right to decline medical treatment as anyone else.

dun1urkin · 07/12/2016 21:12

CQUIN payments aren't extra money, by the way. Ignore they aren't achieved then your Trust won't get all the money it should.
A lot of places need to get all the CQUIN money in, the alternative being increasing the annual requirements to save money. They will be trying to explain this in a currency that is understood.
So think of it that way, you 'see your CQUIN money' by not having to save that money instead.

PossumInAPearTree · 07/12/2016 21:12

Well I'd be happy to have paid leave through the flu season. Grin

LavenderRains · 07/12/2016 21:14

Our trust gives you a voucher for a Costa Coffee Hmm
The 'jab' ladies also come to us at night to catch those on a night shift.
But as far as I know they haven't pressured anyone into having it.
YANBU

IcedVanillaLatte · 07/12/2016 21:15

I care less about your employment rights than the right of patients to be as safe possible. Maybe they could put you on shit-sluicing or paperwork duty instead. I just don't want your far-more-likely-to-be-flu-infected self around my sick granny. (I don't have a sick granny. But anyway.)

Unfortunately there are so few nurses that the choice is a potentially fluey nurse or no nurse.

IcedVanillaLatte · 07/12/2016 21:15

My phone keeps ignoring random words that I type Hmm

Trifleorbust · 07/12/2016 21:16

IcedVanillaLatte: It's not the issue whether you care about it. A person's rights don't change just because you don't think they should exercise them.

IcedVanillaLatte · 07/12/2016 21:20

That's why I said "I'd be happy" with it. It's not like I'm actually going to be able to personally implement it. I said it to highlight how odd it is that people would feel it unfair to lose a few months pay because they refuse to get vaccinated but perfectly fair to risk someone else's life because they won't get vaccinated.

JellyBelli · 07/12/2016 21:20

How can you possibly work for the NHS and be an anti vaxxer? Some of us need you to have had the vaccines available, hospital is risky enough when you have a compromised immune system.
Noit to mention they have to pay you when you are off with the flu.]

Its not bullying, it being insistent because you are asked to do it and refuse, or cant be bothered.

IcedVanillaLatte · 07/12/2016 21:22

And I suspect a whole lot of people would be secretly thinking to themselves "screw your rights" if you were providing close personal care to a vulnerable relative, having chosen not to get a flu vaccine.

raviolidreaming · 07/12/2016 21:22

I hate the fact it gives you the burny sensation for weeks (now) afterwards

My arm is sore at the injection site for 24hrs or so, and that's it. I don't know what you mean by a burny sensation and haven't heard anyone else describe it. Not saying you didn't experience it, but I don't think it's standard!

Mum2jenny · 07/12/2016 21:23

There is serious pressure where I work to have the flu vaccination. However if you get it at work, the system still wants you to formally tell office staff in your dept that you've had it. I do not believe in informing any admin type people of any of my health issues. The occ health dept should know how many staff have been vaccinated at work IMO.

Mum2jenny · 07/12/2016 21:24

I'm NHS too.

Moreisnnogedag · 07/12/2016 21:26

Sorry no you can't bully people into taking up a medical treatment. That's ridiculous. Our trust aren't too heavy handed but now I wish they'd have offered us a costa coffee. I got nowt (bastards).

What happened to Stratters?!

Trifleorbust · 07/12/2016 21:28

IcedVanillaLatte: That's the sort of thing people think all the time when people decide not to do what they feel they should do. It doesn't change a thing about what a person's rights actually are.

Moreisnnogedag · 07/12/2016 21:29

On that line of thinking, why then should we not force all children who can have vaccines to have them? There are vulnerable immunocompromised children at schools up and down the country who definitely can't afford to get ill so why not extend that logic to them?

EveOnline2016 · 07/12/2016 21:31

For the nhs they should learn data protection.

My managers don't have the god given rights to my private Heath records.

I had the flu jab as I'm a NHS worker

IcedVanillaLatte · 07/12/2016 21:32

Have I argued about what people's rights are?

IcedVanillaLatte · 07/12/2016 21:33

And yes, I'd also be happy with a law making free state education contingent on vaccinating your children. I'm a terrible person.