Hospital Employees Fired for Refusing Flu Vaccines - East Idaho News

Hospital Employees Fired for Refusing Flu Vaccines

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ht ethel hoover jp 130102 wg?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1357233661079 Ethel Hoover on her last day as a nurse at IU Health Goshen Hospital in Indiana. (Courtesy Kacy Davis)(GOSHEN, Ind.) — An Indiana hospital has fired eight employees, including at least three veteran nurses, after they refused mandatory flu shots, stirring up controversy over which should come first: employee rights or patient safety. The hospital imposed mandatory vaccines, responding to rising concerns about the spread of influenza.

Ethel Hoover wore all black on her last day of work as a nurse in the critical care unit at Indiana University Health Goshen Hospital. She said she was in “mourning” because she would have been at the hospital 22 years in February, and she’s only called out of work four or five times in her whole career, she said.

“This is my body. I have a right to refuse the flu vaccine,” Hoover, 61, told ABC News. “For 21 years, I have religiously not taken the flu vaccine, and now you’re telling me that I believe in it.”

More than 15,100 flu cases have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since Sept. 30, including 16 pediatric deaths. Indiana’s flu activity level is considered high, according to the CDC, which last month announced that the flu season came a month earlier than usual.

When Hoover first heard about the mandate, she said she didn’t realize officials would take it so seriously. She said she filed two medical exemptions, a religious exemption and two appeals, but they were all denied. The Dec. 15 flu shot deadline came and went. Hoover’s last day of employment was Dec. 21.

The hospital said in a statement that it implemented the mandate to promote patient safety based on recommendations from the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It announced the mandate in September. Of the hospital’s 26,000 employees statewide, 95 percent complied. That means 1,300 employees did not comply, but only eight were fired.

“IU Health’s top priority is the health and wellbeing of our patients,” said hospital spokeswoman Whitney Ertel. “Participation in the annual Influenza Patient Safety Program is a condition of employment with IU Health for the health and safety of the patients that we serve, and is therefore required.”

The CDC recommends flu shots for everyone older than six months of age. Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., said hospital patients are especially vulnerable to flu complications because their bodies are already weakened.

Hoover’s lawyer, Alan Phillips, says his client had the right to refuse her flu shot under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits religious discrimination of employees. Religion is legally broad under the First Amendment, so it could include any strongly held belief, he said, adding that the belief flu shots are bad should suffice.

“If your personal beliefs are religious in nature, then they are a protected belief,” Phillips said.

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