More health care workers should get flu shot: top doc
Posted May 31, 2011 05:37:01 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The province’s top medical officer says not enough health care workers are getting their flu shots – and they’re putting patients at risk.
Just 37 per cent of doctors, nurse and other staffers at Capital Health were immunized this year.
Chief public health officer Dr. Robert Strang calls the low rate “unecessary and dangerous.”
He tells the Herald it’s worrying because it increases the risk of transmitting the flu to patients who are already at an increased risk for the virus.
Capital Health officials say most employees say they just don’t have time to wait in line for a shot and then sit through the 15-minute recovery period.
The possibility has been raised of making immunization for health care workers mandatory, but Strang says that would involve dealing with issues like labour relations and workers rights.
