Flu vaccine requirement for Maine healthcare workers meets resistance from some nurses

As Maine battles the COVID-19 pandemic, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention is proposing a new rule that would require healthcare workers to be vaccinated for seasonal flu in addition to other mandatory vaccinations.

But the proposal, which aims to boost immunity in healthcare settings to protect workers and patients, has met opposition from some nurses who argued in a public hearing Monday that they should choose to get the flu shot.

Rebecca Begin believes that many healthcare workers will rather quit than get the flu shot.

“Free will cannot be taken away from healthcare workers,” said Begin, a nurse. “This decision will be a tipping point for many people leaving the health workforce.”

Cokie Giles, president of the Maine State Nurses Association, said the union supports flu shots, but not the state rule that makes them mandatory, and that employees should still be able to choose to be vaccinated.

But another nurse, Brandie Rubin, said healthcare workers have an ethical duty to protect their patients, and getting a flu shot is one of those tasks.

The Maine CDC already requires healthcare workers to be vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox and hepatitis B. The flu would be added to the list if the agency approves the rule. Maine would join at least nine other states, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York, that mandate flu shots for healthcare workers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr Nirav Shah, director of the CDC of Maine, told a press conference on COVID-19 cases on Monday that having more people vaccinated against the flu is “good public health practice” .

“Every healthcare worker we can keep healthy and unaffected by the flu is a healthcare worker who can care for COVID-19 patients and other patients during the winter months,” Shah said. .

MaineHealth, the parent company of Maine Medical Center in Portland and a network of hospitals and health services in Maine, has required flu shots for its 23,000 employees this year after doing so voluntarily in previous years. Public health experts have stressed the importance of the flu vaccine during the pandemic to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by the flu and COVID-19 patients at the same time.

Cara Sacks, spokesperson for Mainers for Health and Parental Rights, a group that led an unsuccessful campaign to overturn a new Maine law that eliminated religious and philosophical opt-outs for mandatory school vaccines, said the Maine CDC is overstepping its authority.

“The Maine CDC has the authority to make rules as part of the process of implementing existing laws. However, this proposed rule change abuses that authority and usurps the role of the Legislature by blatantly attempting to create a new law under the guise of a rule change, ”Sacks said in a statement.

Caitlin Gilmet, spokesperson for Maine Families for Vaccines, which supported school vaccine requirements, said “the flu vaccine plays an important role” in public health.

“We trust the experts who recommend this measure,” Gilmet said.

The proposed rule change could also pave the way for compulsory vaccination of healthcare workers against COVID-19. But Shah said it was “too early to predict” whether the new flu rule, which could take effect in early 2021, would apply to COVID-19 vaccines.

“We are focusing on the logistics and deployment of the new COVID-19 vaccines,” Shah said.

Some health workers could start receiving COVID-19 vaccines as early as December, as two vaccines are at an advanced stage of development and could be approved for emergency use by the FDA at a December 10 meeting.

COVID-19 is on the rise in Maine and across the country this fall. Hospitalizations have also increased and Maine currently has 103 people hospitalized.

The new rule proposed by the CDC of Maine states that “in the event of a public health emergency or extreme public health emergency declared by the governor, the department may impose control measures” on the health workers “y including, but not limited to, mass vaccinations and workforce exclusions. “

Dan Morin, spokesperson for the Maine Medical Association, a group that represents physicians before the Maine Legislature, said, “There is no doubt that reducing healthcare-associated influenza rates improves the patient safety and that the mandates of healthcare workers against seasonal influenza work.

“We support the prescription of the seasonal influenza vaccine for healthcare workers,” said Morin.

But Morin also said that because COVID-19 vaccines are new, even though emergency use is approved for vaccines in December, “we’re not yet at the point where we have compelling evidence to make recommendations for. a warrant (from COVID-19 vaccine).

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