Essentia Health Hospital in the Midwest fired more than 50 of its nearly 14,000 employees for refusing to get a flu shot.
The hospital initiated a mandate requiring all of its employees to get vaccinated against the flu. No matter if they worked in one of its clinical facilities in Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Ohio.
According to the CDC, none of those states legally require healthcare workers to get flu vaccines. Immunization is said to reduce the flu’s prevalence by between 40 and 60 percent.
Until the company fired her, Sharon Beaulieu worked for Essentia as a medical record clerk Essentia called her later to say that she had a shot at keeping her job if she qualified for a medical or religious exemption from the new policy.
Beaulieu filled out the exemption paperwork.
“I just wrote “N/A” on everything [and] sent them a letter that that is not what I am claiming as exempt; I am going to claim this is a human rights violation,” she said.
Beaulieu has gotten a flu shot every year until now.
“It has never been about the vaccine,” she says, “I just don’t feel that anyone has a right to tell me what to inject into my body or not, that is what it boiled down to for me.”
Beaulieu worked in a non-medical warehouse facility in West Duluth, Minnesota. She said she has no contact with patients, and hardly even interacts with co-workers from her basement desk.
Beaulieu, 68, said she received emails notifying her that she would be terminated if she did not get vaccinated. Her supervisor spoke to her once, asking if she intended to get the shot.
Essentia told her she could come back to work, and she said she is not sure if she has been terminated for good. Beaulieu says she will not get the shot under any circumstances.
Beaulieu says she makes $15 an hour.
“Not enough to afford a lawyer,” she says, half-jokingly.
The United Steel Workers Union filed a lawsuit against Essentia in October, alleging that the company denied valid exemption requests and failed to negotiate with the union.
The Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) Union filed an unfair labor relations complaint against Essentia at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
The flu shot mandate “violates the contract that the nurses have with the employer because it introduced a policy without bargaining and the contract expressly says that if you’re going to introduce something new, you have to bargain,” says Rick Fuentes, a communications specialist at the MNA. Fuentes said the union attempted to bargain with Essentia on November 7.
The employer “had no intention of negotiating,” he says.
Essentia is arguing that it is acting in its patients’ best interests.
“Essentia Health cares for vulnerable patients every day. Immunization significantly minimizes the risk of patients contracting influenza while under our care,” says Dr. Rajesh Prabhu, an infectious disease specialist, and patient quality and safety officer.
Dr. Prabhu stated that “more than 99.5 percent of Essentia’s 13,900 colleagues have made a commitment to the safety of their patients and community by receiving the flu vaccine, being approved for an exemption or in the exemption process.”
Fuentes argues that company mandates are not the best way to ensure patient safety.
A study published in January called into question the effectiveness of required flu shots and found that the benefits were negligible.
In Minnesota state legislators 2014, introduced a bill to mandate flu vaccination for all healthcare workers, but it did not pass.
“When you rely on a shot to keep from getting sick from healthcare workers, you see healthcare workers develop this bulletproof mentality,” says Fuentes.
“You see fewer flu prevention methods such as ordinary hand-washing practices and protective equipment like masks,” when flu shots are mandated, he claims.
“MNA nurses are not opposed to the flu shot. However, they are opposed to a mandated flu shot policy,” Fuentes says.
Fuentes said the union wanted to negotiate for “protection” for nurses who might experience allergic reactions or get sick after having the shot.
It is estimated that 1%-2% of people are allergic to the shot. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all people over six months old get the shot.
“Nurses are caregivers and patient advocates, at their bedsides or away, and getting flu shots is something they strongly advocate, but nurses believe that a mandated flu shot policy against their rights and is counterproductive to making sure that their patients are well taken care of,” says Fuentes.
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