To ask Health care staff treating me if they've had their covid vaccine?

[BearEastie]

I am immunosuppressed. I've been vaccinated but they don't know how well it will work yet.

I would prefer to only be treated by staff who had been vaccinated, thus if they said no I would ask for limited contact or a swap in nursing etc.

Just read shocking statistics from the hospital I am due to go to next month for a two week stay and I am starting to freak out just a little bit.

If a patient asked me I would be happy to tell them but then I have had the first vaccine (not allowed to book second yet!). What will you do if they aren't vaccinated but there is nobody available who is?

FYI the flu fighter stickers have no bearing on who has had the flu vaccine. Mine from 4 years ago is still stuck to my ID badge simply because I’ve never got round to removing it. I guarantee others are the same.

You have no right to the confidential medical information of the staff treating you.

@TheGoogleMum I do know that everyone in the trust who has patient contact has been offered the vaccine already (first dose). That's already all been made public.

Maybe there is a reason you posted in AIBU rather than on Covid

Are you just looking to create a storm in a teacup

Your preoccupation about your rights v's everyone else's in the NHS seems..............

Your thinking is flawed, because you are focusing on a single virus rather than the infection control measures in place, and you are incapable of recognizing that the NHS staff also have a right to medical privacy, and that it would be impossible for your 'request' to be actioned, ever.

Ergo, you are wasting your time trying to convince everyone that somehow what you want, to put your mind at rest, will never happen, so you'd probably be best to start a new thread along the lines of ''How can I reduce my anxiety/ stress level ?''

I still hope all goes well for you, but I'd advise focusing on how to deal with what is, rather than how you'd like things to be.

@BearEastie
Doesn't remove my right to chose who does and does not provide treatment for me to minimise risk to myself, I'm afraid.
Shane the staff don’t have the same right to refuse to treat someone someone with such an entitled attitude.

In the same way that as many of my colleagues now suffer with PTSD symptoms, it is not for individual patients to give them a questionnaire about their current mental health / sleep pattern etc etc to determine if they accept treatment from them.

Again, someone with PTSD isn't putting me at risk - it's incredibly rare anyone with a mental health condition is violent (i know you probably know that, and that's hopefully not what you are getting at), so it really doesn't bother me when it comes to my care (it does bother me hugely emotionally though because we shouldn't be in the position we are with the huge increases in PTSD across the population). So it's not really a valid comparison to me.

Well I certainly wouldn't be telling you and would be encouraging my staff not to disclose their personal health history to patients.

it is completely inappropriate for a patient to ask and treat staff differently based on their vaccination.

If this was encouraged or tolerated it could lead to bullying negative behaviours in an already stressful work environment.

Actually I couldn't find the Covid board - I now see it's actually titled Coronavirus and not Covid (well i saw that a couple of hours ago...)

But yes, it's also an AIBU so fine here - I mean I have asked am I being unreasonable and I've had some very helpful responses, some responses that have changed my perception on things, some responses I don't agree with, and some very rude responses (thankfully the minority).

@wellhellohi That's your call.

What are you going to do if it becomes a mandatory vaccine though? Would you encourage your staff to lie about having it?

You’re unlikely to be at risk from violence, sure.

Your care could be at risk from someone who has uncontrolled depressive symptoms, is distracted by overwhelming anxiety or has sleep deprivation - or indeed is using alcohol to self-medicate (In terms of psychomotor performance and speed of reactions - this is one the of reasons that fatigue and rota patterns have received so much attention in the last few years). Equally, a person with those symptoms may have excellent strategies to manage them, and the risk to patients is minimal.

You don’t perceive this as an issue (which is totally valid because you are speaking from a haematology perspective not from that of someone undergoing surgery) but there are many situations where someone’s health can impact on their ability to deliver safe care

This is why risk assessment on an individual basis with nuance and sensitivity in the setting of occupational health is so important.

Absolutely not. I would never encourage lying however if it became mandatory, which I doubt it will, I will continue to encourage my staff to keep private information private.

Patients will never have the right to know staffs personal information.

@parallax80 Yes, I totally agree - but I am not having surgery.

I agree with the risk assessment - hence why I will be asking (as I said previously) if the trust can provide me with theirs for patients.

However, it doesn't seem that individual staff who decline the vaccine are all having an RA done (how can they if as posts on this thread have demonstrated, they don't even know who has and hasn't been vaccinated?)

@wellhellohi Well if it's mandatory it's mandatory - everyone will have to have it - or chose to work elsewhere (unless there's an EA reason that's certified for them not to).

My first thought is what would happen if heaven forbid you were in a medical emergency and not in a position of being able to ask?
We have special protocols in place with regards to PPE during such events, and every staff member on the ward are expected to attend as well as a porter and doctors. I wouldn’t however be able to tell you who has been vaccinated or not as we genuinely don’t know unless the individual says something.

It will never be made mandatory because there will be even less staff than there is now.

@BearEastie It won’t become mandatory. Even if it does it will only apply to new staff like previous mandatory requirements were. It’s employment discrimination to force someone out of a job for declining a vaccine that they are legally able to decline. Working in health care does not take away your human rights.

@parallax80 Yes, I totally agree - but I am not having surgery.

My point is not about your specific situation but the general idea of crossing a boundary where as a society we make it acceptable to ask individual healthcare workers personal questions about their medical history during the course of their workday.

I think it is completely reasonable for you to ask the trust about their risk mitigation policies. At present vaccination is not mandatory so they will not be able to guarantee that you are only looked after by vaccinated staff - although there may be a local policy within their haematology department for how they are managing the risk in terms of redeployment / isolation periods within rota / lateral flow testing etc.

@Poundie That's a risk that I can't minimise though.

@Madwife123 Ah ok, i thought I read it was being made mandatory in many private companies though - they are governed by the same legislation as health care.

Anyway, I would much rather staff choose to have it out of their own free will (if they can without additional risk to them)

I'm NHS, caring for patients, and have only just had my vaccine because the original guidance was that breastfeeding women couldn't have it. By the time they changed the guidance I had to wait for the next "window" of vaccinations to open. If you had asked me I would have felt no compulsion to disclose all of that; I'd probably have just said yes to avoid another judgy conversation with a complete stranger about why I'm still breastfeeding.

@MaryMashedThem bad assumption on this complete stranger, I wouldn't have judged you for breastfeeding :-)

[quote BearEastie]@MaryMashedThem bad assumption on this complete stranger, I wouldn't have judged you for breastfeeding :-)[/quote]
But it’s none of your business. You have absolutely no right to know the ins and outs of other people’s medical history. And even less right to judge them for it.

Logistically it's impossible to demand this. I was on nights last week and saw upwards of 100 patients. I entered theatre midway through to assist for example in the middle of the night - the patient would have been anaesthetised before they could check my covid status. There was no one else to assist and it's a two person job. What do you propose we do then?

I attended 7 crash calls where people were unconscious as I held their airway, did cpr, got access etc. If you want to decline care from those with an unknown vaccination status I suppose you're declining emergency resuscitation care as we can't check everybody on the teams beforehand. I wasn't on the crash team for all of these; I happened to be the first clinician on the scene when the emergency call went out and I'd never hold back from providing care to those that need it.

I wouldn't disclose my vaccination status either with patients. I find that grossly invasive and I have a right to patient confidentiality myself. It's not something I'd ever discuss with anyone.

I'm sorry you're so anxious. We're all working very hard to keep patients safe adhering to PPE rules and all. But we are also realistic

Hi OP. I would just like to share my experience as a ward based nurse who can’t yet have the vaccine at this moment in time.

Currently on night shifts and my trust (as is the same in many trusts) has unfortunately really been struggling with staffing due to sickness for the past few months. Last night we only had two nurses on shift for the whole ward with no care support staff. In addition to this we also had several patients who required additional care such as constant 1:1 nursing supervision to keep them safe. Which as you can imagine is near impossible to do when you have many other patients requiring care. It was very difficult and stressful But me and my colleague got through the shift safely. At one point I was practically crying to senior staff begging for an extra staff member to help support us delivering care to the enhanced need patients, but where told time and time again there is literally no one to help as all the wards are on their knees and we will just have to do our best. Honestly the last few months have been more stressful then when we where in the hight of the pandemic for me and some of my colleagues.

In this situation unfortunately your option would be to accept me as your nurse unvaccinated (at present), or to have no nurse for the 12 hour period because there was just no one else to cover. I do 3 to four shifts a week and unfortunately this staffing situation that occurred last night happens increasingly frequently where there are only two of us available.

I was risk assessed a while ago and moved to a different area, however my risk assessment was updated and I have been moved back to ward care. I know it’s not much help, but just wanted to give you my experiences as a currently unvaccinated nurse.

@VinylDetective THE POSTER JUST SHARED THAT INFORMATION WITH ME, ON THIS THREAD.

I replied to say I didn't judge her for that decision... which she voluntarily shared with me (in writing, just above your post).

@yuyubooboo just answered this question - in those situations it is a risk I cannot mitigate against, it doesn't stop me wanting to mitigate against the risk when I can.

I hope you managed to get some decent rest after that shift.