Keeping Our Kids Healthy

So I need your advice.

What should Children's Specialized do if we know that employees are intentionally putting our children at risk? Now that is definitely a loaded question and the first reaction is that we must do everything to protect our children. Ok, but what if the risk is that employees refuse to get flu shots free of charge? By not doing so - put our children at risk.

Okay - I can see the eye rolls as I write this. "Why doesn’t she just give this up already? We are already double the percentage for most hospital employees why can’t she just leave well enough alone?"

That was true in the past, but now most hospitals have achieved a 74% vaccination rate among their clinical staff. So we are not any better than the national average. There are now about 45 hospitals and heath systems that require mandatory influenza vaccination and a recent CDC survey of 1,500 health care workers indicated that 1 out of 10 employers required mandatory vaccination. The fact remains that unless we get a vaccination rate of over 90%, our patients will remain at risk from influenza.

We have surveyed our non vaccinated staff about why they refuse the flu vaccine. The most common answer is “I never get sick.” However, it is well known that health care workers may become sick from influenza but have such a mild case that they still come to work. That does not prevent them from transmitting the virus to their patients. For our children with chronic health conditions contracting influenza may cause significant complications and even result in their death. So we need to think about our patients health and get vaccinated to help protect our patients.

Not only do we need to get vaccinated against influenza but there is another disease out there that is making a major comeback. The answer may surprise you - Whooping cough (pertussis). Seven infants have died in California because adults had whooping cough, and transmitted to children. Adults who get pertussis don’t get whooping cough; they get the cough that never seems to go away and typically lasts about 6 to 8 weeks! But when babies and young children get pertussis they get whooping cough which can be deadly. The infants who died in California could not fight the infection because they were too young for the vaccine to be effective (pertussis vaccine (part of the “DPT”) is a series of three shots given at 2,4, and 6 months of age and a booster at 18 months). Infants don’t have immunity until they complete all three shots. The problem is compounded by parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated. Politicians have inserted themselves into this debate and said that we should allow parents to make their own decisions for their children - but what happens when their free choice impacts the rest of us? Adults who were vaccinated against whooping cough as children need to be revaccinated as adults and this can now be done when you get your tetanus shot But for those who opt out - the result may be deadly for our kids.

So what should we do? Right now we make influenza vaccination one of our corporate goals. We provided the shots free of charge and will virtually do them any time day or night. Our highest percentage of employees who get the shots are actually the administration employees who may never see children - such as all of our employees on Route 22. The employees who have the least vaccination, sadly our EIP employees who are most vulnerable because they are walking into people's homes each day. There is no environmental services staff there to make sure they are safe and things are clean.

We have talked about allowing staff to opt out but for clinical staff who are not vaccinated they would have to mask and gown before they were allowed contact with a child in the event of an influenza or pertussis outbreak. At RWJ they put a dot on their ID card to distinguish between those who have gotten their flu shots and those who haven't.

Your advice/comments would be welcome. How can we increase the number of CSH employees who receive their flu or whooping cough vaccine?

The truth is that with whooping cough starting, other diseases of the “past” may not be far behind. When the vaccination rate against polio dropped off in several countries in Africa, polio came back with a vengeance. As an organization we lived through that crisis once - it would be a sin to be faced with it again.