Canadian doctors and nurses mount resistance to forced swine flu jab

Federal agency won't force front-line health workers to get flu vaccination

By Andrew Mayeda and Sharon Kirkey,
Canwest News Service July 23, 2009


The Public Health Agency of Canada has no plan to deal with front-line health-care workers who refuse to be vaccinated against swine flu, a scenario that some infectious-disease experts believe could accelerate the spread of the flu pandemic.

The question of whether doctors and nurses should be forced to take flu vaccines has long been a contentious issue in the public-health community. In 2002, the Ontario government withdrew legislation that made it mandatory for paramedics to get flu shots, after the paramedics' union launched a legal challenge under the Charter.

The Canadian Medical Association, which represents tens of thousands of doctors, will introduce a resolution at its annual meeting next month that encourages physicians to get the H1N1 vaccine, which is expected to be ready in the fall. But the association will stop short of endorsing mandatory vaccinations, CMA president Dr. Robert Ouellet said. "We think there should be informed consent," Ouellet said in an interview. "Everyone should have the right to refuse a vaccination if they think it's not right for them." "We think there should be informed consent,"

But some members of the medical community worry that such sensitivity toward the rights of health-care workers could undermine efforts to fight the flu pandemic.

It is believed that roughly half of all front-line health-care workers take the seasonal flu shot every year -- a higher rate of uptake than in the general public, but enough to leave an alarming gap in the pandemic battle, some experts say.

"Health-care workers have been resistant to flu shots in general. That has been the problem," said Dr. Kumanan Wilson, a public-health policy specialist at the University of Ottawa.

He said he believes hospitals should have the authority to send employees home when they refuse to be vaccinated during outbreak.
But others disagree.

"It's a human-rights issue," said Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions. "You cannot impose it on workers, and you cannot impose it on a community."


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