Hospitals Requiring Workers to Get Flu Shots, Firing if Not

Have you gotten yours?

With the worst flu season in nearly a decade well underway, patients have been encouraged to get flu shots. Though they can refuse them, U.S. hospitals are cracking down on employees who try and do the same. In the past two months, at least 15 nurses and other hospital staffers in four states have been fired for refusing a flu shot and several others have resigned. A survey by CDC researchers found that in 2011, more than 400 U.S. hospitals required flu vaccinations for their employees and 29 hospitals fired unvaccinated employees. Their reasons to refuse vary: allergies to flu vaccine; religious objections; and skepticism about whether vaccinating health workers will prevent flu in patients. Meanwhile, at least 20 children have died this season. The number of flu-related deaths has varied in recent decades from about 3,000 to 49,000. The government wants 90 percent of U.S. health care workers to have had flu shots by 2020. (Fox)

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