Fewer Than Onequarter Of N.S. Healthcare Workers Have Their Flu Shots This Year

A growing number of health care workers in Nova Scotia are not getting the flu vaccine each year, according to data released by their employer, Nova Scotia Health.

In response to a question from CBC News, authority spokeswoman Jennifer Lewandowski wrote: "As of December 14, 2023, 7,231 employees (22.5%) had received the flu vaccine for the 2023 flu season. -24".

This is the lowest flu vaccination rate in at least a decade, according to statistics posted on the Nova Scotia Department of Health website. Vaccination rates ranged from 45.1% during the 2015-2016 flu season to 29.8% last year.

Although Nova Scotia Health tracks employee vaccination rates, Lewandowski said some health-care workers have gotten the vaccinations themselves at pharmacies and clinics without telling their employers. There is no obligation to inform.

Strahn was worried

However, Nova Scotia's director of public health, Dr. Robert Strang, is concerned about declining vaccination rates.

"We're not at a point where we really need vaccinations," Strange said Thursday.

"Scotland is not alone in the use of what I would call the flu vaccine by healthcare workers. "It's a problem across the country and beyond.

"But personally, [I'm] amazed that health care professionals, many of whom are well-informed about the flu and see its effects, are still rejecting vaccine protection."

Janet Hazelton, president of the Nova Scotia Nurses Union, called the decline disappointing but understandable.

"I think it's very important for health care workers, for everybody, to get the flu vaccine, but especially for health care workers because they're around vulnerable people," Hazelton said.

"But I also understand that health care workers are tired. They've had a tough few years."

Robert Whish is an associate professor of international development studies at Dalhousie University. (Steve Lawrence/CBC)

Robert Whish, an associate professor of international development studies at Dalhousie University, was also surprised by the 22.5% vaccination rate this year.

"For one in five health care workers, that's a new low," said Whish, who has written two books on the government's response to the pandemic, including COVID-19 and the use of vaccines.

"Doctors are among those who get the flu or flu shots, while nurses are less likely to participate. And then physician assistants and even paramedics are less likely to participate."

Mandatory vaccinations are taken into account.

In 2019, Strang suggested that a mandatory vaccine may be needed to address the 41% flu vaccination rate.

Given the province's experience with the COVID-19 vaccination program and the ongoing debate over the vaccine, the province's chief public health officer isn't convinced that's the answer.

"This mandatory policy was largely justified in an acute epidemic," Strang said. “In a non-pandemic era it is more difficult to justify this mandatory approach. But we must think of all the ways to use them to vaccinate more healthcare workers and the general public.

Hazelton and Whish think the same thing.

"I think there has to be a health crisis like Covid-19 for something to be compelling, and even that has met with some resistance," Hazelton said. "I don't think we should give the flu vaccine."

Whish said: “There is still salt in the air for some healthcare workers in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, where their employers have told them they have to get vaccinated or they could pack their bags and leave.

"And many nurses," she added, "many paramedics [and] other people who work in the health care system choose to say no." »

All three agree that educating people and making the vaccine available will convince more health care workers to get flu shots.

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