AIBU re Flu Jab for healthcare professionals

[Libitina]

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?

[CPtart]

People don't choose to be elderly or vulnerable but they, of their own free choice, can refuse to have the flu jab. And hundreds of thousands do. Do they also not have a responsibility to their peers and wider society? My right to make the same choice is as important as theirs.
Of course you can't force people out the door. In the same vein it's no less immoral to bribe and threaten HCP with non-compliance either.

[ChestyNut]

I'm having mine next week, looking forward to my extra annual leave day for having it.

Does anyone else get a red/hot swollen round area from it? Get it every year, not just a small area, roughly 10cmx10cm (fat arms)

[PregnantBridesmaid]

CPTart it is an entirely different situation. The elderly and vulnerable have not taken on a role in which they have a duty of care to more vulnerable members of society.

Healthcare professionals have however taken on that duty of care. They will be coming in to regular contact with vulnerable individuals and have a professional responsibility. They may not have symptoms of the flu but can still transmit it on to a patient that they are meant to be there to protect. This may be life threatening for that patient. Therefore it is my belief that when you choose that job, I think you have made your choice about whether to get the vaccine or not. I think that your professional duty overrides personal autonomy.


So yes, OP is BU. Good on her managers for being proactive to get vaccination rates up.

[tehmina23]

As an HCA I had the flu jab last week with no ill effects.

I always have the flu jab since I was ill for 2 weeks with it a few years ago - I worked in a factory as a temp & didn't get paid for 2 whole weeks!
I felt like I'd been run over, I couldn't do anything.

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

Chesty one year I got a huge swollen red lump (about palm of hand sized) for 24 hours after, on the sire of the injection.

[CPtart]

The elderly and vulnerable have a responsibility to protect themselves as far as is reasonably possible. If more people took responsibility for their own health we wouldn't be seeing a boom in some of the chronic health conditions and associated social problems we do.
I still refuse to have (assuming I live to a nice old age) over 70 flu vaccines administered in my lifetime. Personal autonomy wins every time.