FLU VACCINE SHOULD BE COMPULSORY FOR MEDICS, SAYS EXPERT

As infections soar, the country’s top virologist says mandatory jab is a ‘patient safety issue’

THE country’s leading infections expert has called for mandatory flu vaccines for healthcare workers here. Virologist Dr Cillian De Gascun expressed his concerns after the HSE revealed the majority of its employees have not had the jab. A HSE influenza briefing on January 4 heard that, while the country is in the grip of a flu epidemic, six in ten hospital workers are treating patients without the protection of the jab.

Dr De Gascun, director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, described the low-levels of uptake as ‘disheartening’ and said patients’

well-being should be priority. He added that the time and resources being put into incentivising staff to get the vaccine could be better used elsewhere.

‘I think it should be mandatory,’ he told the Irish Daily Mail. ‘I suppose, in an ideal world, you would like all healthcare workers to want to get [the vaccine] and to make the effort to get it but obviously that’s not happening, so we need to do something.’

He continued: ‘I think the message we have to get out there is: we’re not really vaccinating healthcare workers for their own benefit – although they will benefit themselves – it’s for their patients. So that’s really the priority: it’s a patient safety issue here.

The medical virologist, who pointed out that the jab is free of charge for healthcare staff, added that there are a number of reasons why staff opt not to get vaccinated, including misinformation.

‘There is a selection of people who maybe had the vaccine before and still got influenza so they may lack faith in the vaccine. We do know it’s an imperfect vaccine but it’s still the best measure we have to protect against influenza,’ he said, adding: ‘There may be a cohort who are just, generally speaking, anti-vaccine.’

The head of the NVRL acknowledged there may be a level of backlash from staff if they become obliged to get vaccinated. He said: ‘It’s always a shame when you have to make something mandatory because it tends to make people unhappy – and paradoxically you might end up having people rebel against the fact that it is mandatory.

‘But ultimately, from my perspective, it is a patient safety issue so I can’t understand why healthcare workers aren’t making the effort to get it. Unfortunately, in effect they’re choosing not to which is disappointing and disheartening.’ Dr De Gascun said we should not wait for a patient to die before enacting mandatory vaccination. He said: ‘If you look at it from a risk-management perspective, all it really needs is for a sick patient to acquire influenza from a healthcare worker and to have a death in the hospital – and then everybody will be jumping up and down.

‘I just don’t see why we need to wait for that to happen.’

The NVRL is a World Health Organisation-accredited national influenza centre. It collates data and characterises the influenza viruses that are circulating in Ireland each year, and provides the WHO with this information.

Dr Kevin Kelleher, the HSE’s assistant national director for public and child health, shared the most recent uptake figures two weeks ago. ‘In longterm care facilities and in the hospitals, we are now over 30% [staff vaccination uptake]. Hospitals are up around 38% so far and long-term care facilities are around 32% to 33%,’ Dr Kelleher explained.

Last year just 32% of hospital workers were vaccinated. When the data was released in October, Health Minister Simon Harris described the uptake as ‘appallingly low’.

According to HSE data, one in five healthcare workers gets the flu every year.

Some 92 flu cases died last year, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre. The latest HSE figures show that less than ten people have died as a result of the flu so far this season. However, the HSE has forecasted the peak of the flu season will be felt in the coming days.

As many as 23,000 people battled the flu last week, the HSE estimates. Emergency department attendances are up by 10.5% on last year, and the last flu season was ‘the busiest in some time’, a HSE briefing heard last week.

Comment – Page 10 katie.o’neill@dailymail.ie

‘Why wait for that to happen?’