Running head: Healthcare Employees 1

Should Healthcare Employees be Forced to Vaccinate or Face Termination

Name

Institutional Affiliation
Healthcare Employees 2

Introduction

 Viruses such as Covid-19 and Swine Flu virus have led to widespread social and

economic destruction.

 Healthcare workers are given priority to be vaccinated, creating a debate of whether they

should be forced to accept the vaccine or be terminated from their duties.

 The position of this paper is that healthcare workers should not be forced to take

vaccines.

Vaccines should ‘NOT’ be Mandated

 Mandating the uptake of vaccines is not the best way of ensuring that healthcare

employees get vaccinated.

o Just like any other person, healthcare workers too have rights and freedoms that

make them hesitant to get the vaccine due to safety and efficacy concerns since

the process of developing a vaccine is complex and long. For instance, studies

show that Covid-19 greatly affects people with vulnerable immune systems

including those suffering from diabetes, hypertension, heart diseases among

others (Hughes & Edgecombe, 2021).

o The timeline for vaccine development was condensed due to the public health

emergency. This has raised concerns about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine

resulting to the hesitance by healthcare employees.

o Enforcing or terminating them will be an infringement of their rights and

freedoms.
Healthcare Employees 3

 Vaccines do not offer complete protection, they should, therefore, not be forced not only

on healthcare employees but also other people.

o Vaccines can pose risks in one way or the other due to the additives and

preservatives used in vaccines (Wood, 2013).

o In 1976, a swine flu vaccine was found to increase the risk of a paralytic nerve

condition known as Guillain Barre syndrome (Evans et al., 2009).

o Long-term effects of a vaccines should be considered and be made clear for

people to understand and be able to make choices on whether to take them or not.

 Terminating healthcare employees is unfair and also affects the healthcare system.

o Terminating healthcare employees means their lives will change not for the best

but they will have no income to help them and their families survive (Holzmann-

Littig et al., 2021).

o Healthcare employees are very important in any health institution as they are the

ones that provide patients with care and treatment to help them get better.

o When healthcare employees get overwhelmed, they may experience fatigue,

which may affect their duties.

Vaccines should be Mandated

 The discovery of small pox vaccines is one of the greatest achievements in the health

sector.

o Vaccination has been proven to be effective in preventing diseases by triggering

an immune response (Kearns, 2021).

o Healthcare employees are regularly in contact with patients.

Healthcare Employees 4

o Since virus can be unknowingly spread by an infected person, healthcare

employees have a moral obligation to get vaccinated for safety of other people in

hospital.

 Although healthcare employees should not be blamed for unintentionally infecting

patients, responsive adjustment requires that people who inadvertently causes harmful

occurrence should adjust their behavior (Kearns, 2021).

o Unvaccinated employee infects a patient and should put measures to mitigate it.

o Avoiding vaccines makes it morally wrong and responsible for the spread.

o Therefore, it is important to make vaccination mandatory for them.

Conclusion

 Enforcing vaccines and terminating workers is discrimination and stigmatization.

 Although vaccines are important employees should not be forced to take them or

terminated.

 Governments should develop pro-vaccine strategies without making them mandatory.

Healthcare Employees 5

References

Dror, A. A., Eisenbach, N., Taiber, S., Morozov, N. G., Mizrachi, M., Zigron, A., ... & Sela, E.

(2020). Vaccine hesitancy: the next challenge in the fight against COVID-19. European

journal of epidemiology, 35(8), 775-779.

Evans, D., Cauchemez, S., & Hayden, F. G. (2009). “Prepandemic” immunization for novel

influenza viruses,“swine flu” vaccine, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and the detection of rare

severe adverse events. Journal of Infectious Diseases, 200(3), 321-328.

Holzmann-Littig, C., Braunisch, M. C., Kranke, P., Popp, M., Seeber, C., Fichtner, F., ... &

Schmaderer, C. (2021). COVID-19 vaccination acceptance and hesitancy among

healthcare workers in Germany. Vaccines, 9(7), 777.

Hughes, M., & Edgecombe, K. (2021). Rights are balanced by responsibilities. Kai Tiaki:

Nursing New Zealand, 27(10), 21-22.

Kearns, A. J. (2021). Should nurses take a COVID-19 vaccine? Nursing outlook, 69(6), 1081-

1089.

Wood, R. A. (2013). Allergic reactions to vaccines. Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, 24(6),

521-526.