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Flu vaccinations now mandatory for Children’s Medical Center workers

Nancy Severt, pharmacy operations manager at The Children’s Medical Center of Dayton, with some of the 2,500 doses of influenza vaccine. All employees and hospital volunteers will be required to receive flu shots, beginning Sept. 6.

Chris Stewart/Dayton Daily News Staff Photogra Nancy Severt, pharmacy operations manager at The Children’s Medical Center of Dayton, with some of the 2,500 doses of influenza vaccine. All employees and hospital volunteers will be required to receive flu shots, beginning Sept. 6.

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By Ben Sutherly, Staff Writer Updated 7:26 AM Tuesday, August 30, 2011

DAYTON — With few exceptions, all 1,800 employees at the Children’s Medical Center of Dayton must be vaccinated for the flu this fall or they will be fired.

Other local hospitals may adopt similar policies, spurred by last month’s policy decision by the American Hospital Association supporting mandatory flu vaccination for workers.

“Evidence has emerged over the past few years clearly indicating that health care workers can unintentionally expose patients to seasonal influenza if the workers have not been vaccinated, and that such exposure can be dangerous to vulnerable patients,” the AMA said.

Dayton Children’s said Monday workers must either get the flu shot or flu mist by Oct. 31 or face termination. Workers were told last year the vaccination would be a condition of continued employment this year, said Terrie Koss, infection preventionist at Dayton Children’s.

Volunteers also must be vaccinated.

Employees with a documented and legitimate reason for not being vaccinated — an egg allergy or religious reasons, for example — will be required to wear masks while treating patients during the flu season, which runs through next spring.

“If an employee has the flu and takes care of a child with a pre-existing condition, they are putting that child at risk,” Koss said. The new mandate “also protects our employees and their families from contracting the flu from the patients we see.”

Hospital employees must be vaccinated for other diseases before they can work at the hospital. “Now the influenza vaccine will be included in this,” said Becky Mann, employee health manager at Dayton Children’s.

Last year, Dayton Children’s “strongly encouraged” employees to get vaccinated and 96 percent of them did, the hospital said.

Other local hospitals may soon follow Dayton Children’s in requiring vaccinations. The Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association’s infection control group is meeting today to consider a mandatory flu vaccination policy for the region’s private and nonprofit hospitals, according to Bryan Bucklew, GDAHA’s president and CEO.

Richard Perna, a University of Dayton law professor who teaches employment law, said hospitals such as Dayton Children’s have a “legitimate interest” in making sure their workers are vaccinated. Unlike public employers, he said, private employers such as Dayton Children’s do not have to consider “constitutional principles of privacy,” which are meant to protect citizens from government intrusions into their private lives.

Dayton Children’s policy does not raise ethical red flags, especially since it makes exceptions for medical and religious reasons, said Patricia Johnson, a UD philosophy professor who teaches business ethics.

Several Ohio hospitals currently require workers to receive flu vaccinations, but more are doing so, said Tiffany Himmelreich, spokeswoman for the Ohio Hospital Association. Such policies can vary from hospital to hospital, she said.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center began mandating flu vaccinations in 2008, and made the vaccination a condition of employment in 2010, with exceptions similar to those at Dayton Children’s. Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus began mandating the vaccination in 2009.

Other southwest Ohio hospitals that mandate flu vaccinations include the University of Cincinnati’s health system and The Christ Hospital, where the requirement has been in place since 2009.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7457 or bsutherly@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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