I am concerned about the recent news that a number of nurses in B.C. hospitals refuse to have a flu shot. While this may seem a legitimate personal choice, it is nothing other than an astounding disconnect, a monumental lapse of reasoning in this century. It would be one thing if these nurses toiled in back rooms but since they cruise in and out of every room in the hospital it becomes alarming.
Nurses may feel they don’t need the shot because they’re doing fine as it is. Clearly that is because their own immune systems are operating at a high level and can fight off the germs. But the fly in this ointment would be that they are still carrying these germs into the rooms of immune-compromised patients.
This would seem to call for a substantial rethink of this situation.
JAMES FANKHAUSER
Kamloops
