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Opposition to mandatory flu shots for health workers softens

Health-care workers on Vancouver Island were lining up for their flu shots last week after years of controversy about a provincewide directive to get vaccinated or don a mask when treating patients during the flu season.
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Health-care workers on Vancouver Island were lining up for their flu shots last week after years of controversy about a provincewide directive to get vaccinated or don a mask when treating patients during the flu season.

In the first few days of clinics set up by Island Health, more than 1,750 employees were vaccinated, said health authority spokeswoman Sarah Plank. Island Health has about 18,000 employees.

“We’ve seen a really strong response in the first week of our staff clinics,” Plank said. “We’re really pleased to see staff stepping up to the plate.”

The influenza vaccine is available to the public in select pharmacies now and will be widely available by late October, according to Island Health.

Last year, a B.C. arbitrator upheld a provincial government policy requiring that all health-care workers, from doctors to volunteers, be immunized during the flu season, typically December through March.

In October 2013, arbitrator Robert Diebolt dismissed a grievance from the Health Sciences Association of B.C., which represents 16,000 health-care workers, against the policy introduced in 2012 by B.C. provincial health officer Perry Kendall. By that time, the B.C. Nurses’ Union’s complaints about the policy had subsided.

After that ruling, health-care unions for the most part dropped the issue.

Island Health president Dr. Brendan Carr said last week there’s no denying there’s a greater awareness of, or appreciation for, the power of viruses and vaccines amid the current Ebola outbreak in parts of Africa and the D-68 enterovirus hitting the United States and Canada.

“If you look at what’s been happening in the world recently … there’s no question the flu shot is important because it protects us as staff, it protects our patients, and it protects our community,” Carr said. “More and more of our staff are seeing it’s the right thing to do.”

Eighty per cent of health employees across the province last year received the flu shot, according to the province. Compliance among Island Health staff was 71 per cent, up 16 per cent from the previous year.

“The remainder wore a mask while in patient-care areas during the flu season, which ran from Dec. 2013 to April 2014,” Plank said.

In the broader community, immunizations create a wall of defence, Carr said. “If we can get enough people vaccinated in our community, then the virus doesn’t actually make it into our community. It doesn’t have an impact,” he said. “Who we are really protecting is the people who are most vulnerable in our community.”

The flu vaccine is highly recommended for the very young (six months to less than five years old), people 65 and older, and those whose immune systems are compromised for reasons from chronic illness to obesity.

The vaccine is free to the recommended age groups, including their caregivers and household contacts, pregnant women, visitors to hospitals and care homes, owners and operators of poultry farms, and staff and inmates in correctional institutions.

Dee Hoyano, medical health officer for Island Health, advised getting immunized early in the season. The optimal time to get vaccinated is two weeks before encountering the flu bug.

Flumist, generally for children who can’t or don’t want to be pricked with a needle, is also available. Children nine years and under, who have never had the influenza vaccine, are required to get two doses in either form, a month apart, for the first year.

charnett@timescolonist.com

• To find a flu clinic, go to immunizebc.ca/clinics/flu.