News/Commentary

In my first grade, readers were divided into red birds and blue birds so the teacher could work with each group to its level. Of course, everyone knew who the good readers were (red) but it worked.

Health care professionals are dividing themselves into red birds and blue birds. Red birds are pro-vaccination. Blue birds are, or are by my reckoning,  anti-vaccination.

I am a red bird about the flu shot and, barring unforeseen developments, expect to be a red bird about the pandemic shot, too. Although I am not a clinician, when I was working in hospitals, I always got the shot because I was in and out of clinical areas—sometimes in patient rooms, with permission. Why take a chance? I didn’t. It never would have occurred to me to do otherwise.

I am a blue bird—slow here—about why many health care professionals say all the same things the public does. “It doesn’t work.” “I got the flu from the last shot.” “I don’t want to be told what to do. It is my body.” “I never get sick.”

Of course, health care workers are human, too. Maybe it should not be a surprise that many react the same way as others. Many of them are not at bedside, so they may think what they do does not matter that much.

However, many of them have had enough science in school to understand more about vaccines than the nonsense they are spouting. Did they forget that part? It appears so.

This year is different. The pandemic, originally billed as “mild,” may be. Then again, it may not be.

It is following the pattern of other pandemics. Mild in round one. More aggressive in round two.

Americans are natural “again-ners.” That’s how this country came to be. “Don’t tread on me!” There is a fair bit of don’t tread on me in comments which have appeared in the weekend newspapers.

An ideal solution would be if all the vaccinated patients could go to the vaccinated health care professionals in a separate building and the again-ners could go to their like-minded care-givers in another.

Everyone would be of like mind as the pandemic advances. We would have a controlled study about vaccinations, on a scale impossible otherwise.

Of course, that is not possible.

There are way too many blue birds about vaccination: Can’t, won’t, not going to, you cannot make me.

We red birds, the minority, would be outside in the cold.

One public health expert has called these health care workers’ reactions “appalling.”

It is worse than that.

The professors who taught me about ethics and values in patient care were adamant on one point: The patient comes first.

The biggest health care system in the Washington, D.C, region is requiring all employees to get the shot. Some workers are not too happy about that and shared those thoughts with The Washington Post. (Disclosure: The writer worked there.)

One more time: The patient still comes first. This is not, or should not be, only a marketing slogan.

It is how ethical people provide health care. The ethical obligation does not stop with doctors and nurses.

Housekeeping workers go into clean patient rooms every day. They have responsibilities, too. Every one who is close to patients has responsibilities. They risk other people—-co-workers and patients—when they take the don’t tread on me position.

Parents, too, are resisting vaccination at astonishingly high levels, given the threat. Only about 40% of the parents in a University of Michigan poll said they intended to have their children vaccinated.

No vaccine is perfect, to be sure. But it beats the hell out of nothing, folks.

I hope, for all of our sakes, that we do not have to learn how true that is.

If you have doubts that this is a “serious” illness, go to Flu.gov and read about it for yourself. Perhaps you will better understand the worry about this pandemic.

If you have doubts about pregnant women needing protection, there was a small study which showed they appear to have a special risk. The CDC issued an advisory to OBs, who traditionally want to give patients as little medicine as possible. The message was clear. This time it is different. Vaccinate them.

If you don’t want to take the flu shot, no one can or wishes to force you.

However, children should have the best protection available.

We vote to send the blue bird health care workers to sit in the corner for a time-out to think about their views.

We also vote for parents who are willing to take this kind of risk with their children to take a double time-out.