One competing need that affects COVID-19 is ensuring safety through COVID-19 prevention. COVID-19 is very contagious. Therefore, unless effectively prevented, it can spread very first, as was evident during the height of the pandemic (Grabert et al., 2022). The condition may spread through air or touching contaminated surfaces and touching one’s nose. Even though care providers can use the protective gear available to them, vaccination offers more protection. Healthcare organizations are obligated to ensure safe environments for employees. Therefore, it is important to remind employees to vaccinate to limit the disease’s spread among staff and patients in their care. Failing to prevent COVID-19 from spreading may cause physical harm among patients and clients and have legal implications. Lawsuits may also cost the organizations’ reputation and money.
The need to protect patients’ and nurses’ right to informed consent competes with the need to secure the environment. ANA ethics require that professionals protect themselves as they serve patients. Employers also need to make the setting safe to attract the primary clients of professionals and patients (Grabert et al., 2022). therefore, sometimes, like during pandemics, they may need to take emergency measures to avoid disease spread. This may cause the temptation to violate some rights and freedoms. Nurses, like other people, require the autonomy to choose what happens to them. Employers must balance all the rights and need to ensure while people get and deliver care safely, their rights are also protected (Grabert et al., 2022). Employers must determine how much protection is legally and ethically allowed to protect stakeholders. Without protecting their rights, nurses may sue. Also, some nurses may refuse to work for the organization and jeopardize the fight against the virus.
Policy
The facility requires mandatory vaccination for care providers unless one has religious or health reasons. The policy was created in response to the nurses and medical associations and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) establishing policies that required hospitals under them to ensure mandatory vaccination for their staff (Grabert et al., 2022). The policy was formed to enable prevention in the facility. Healthcare environments handle many patients simultaneously. The inpatient and outpatient settings also enabled lots of exposure between providers and patients. Also, it is irrational to require social distancing between care providers and patients. For instance, when assessing patients, professionals may have to be close to them. When caring for hospitalized patients, nurses may also have to help them physically and implement treatments. Also, even though protective gear is available, their protection is low compared to vaccination. Studies also support vaccination as the best protection. The organization also recognizes that some convictions do not allow believers to take vaccines. It also recognizes that vaccines may adversely affect people with some illnesses. Hence, the policy makes the two exemptions. The vaccines are given for free at the facility.
Critique
Despite the good reasons, the policy also has negative ethical implications. First, the policy improves the general workplace safety for professionals. Nurses who are vaccinated are more protected than those who are unimmunized, especially in contaminated healthcare settings. Bioethics also requires that professionals avoid harm and benefit patients. Apart from protecting oneself from the disease, immunization reduces the chances of hospital-acquired COVID-19 infections (Maneze et al., 2023). Hence, the policy enables the organization to meet its safety obligations to patients and employees. However, it limits employees’ autonomy. Autonomy is an important principle that enables informed consent. The policy will force employees to vaccinate even when they do not prefer it for reasons other than health and religious reasons. Even though the policy considers the different faiths and health issues, it does not accommodate other cultural aspects. Therefore, the policy had the strength of promoting beneficence through prevention and limiting nurses’ autonomy.
Recommendation
The policy causes potential human rights violations. It restricts employees’ freedom to determine whether they should be vaccinated or not. The rationale is that vaccinating professionals will better enable the facility to protect its staff and the patients who get care. The virus’s contagiousness makes it very risky unless prevented effectively. Even though these policies were necessary at the height of the pandemic, they should be relaxed after the emergency ended (Grabert et al., 2022). The vaccine is available, and the infection rates are significantly lower than they were. The risk associated with it has also been greatly reduced. Additionally, vaccination information is readily available for public decision-making (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024). Nurses’ and other providers’ rights should be held similarly to patients’. Therefore, just as the general public is not required to vaccinate to access their jobs, nurses should not be forced to vaccinate. The power should be returned to individuals. After all, nurses are expected to understand the potential impacts of their failure to vaccinate. The current policy that the facility has maintained was important when there was a pandemic (Maneze et al., 2023). However, now, only causes legal risks to the facility. The laws require that people be treated equally and make health decisions. Forcing people to take treatments that they would otherwise avoid unless it is also required for everyone else is discriminatory and undermines nurses’ dignity.
References
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from Vaccination Trends—Adults: https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/data-research/dashboard/vaccination-trends-adults.html
Grabert, B. K., Gilkey, M. B., Huang, Q., Kong, W. Y., Thompson, P., & Brewer, N. T. (2022). Primary care professionals’ support for COVID-19 vaccination mandates: Findings from a US national survey. Preventive Medicine Reports, 28, 101849.doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2022.101849
Maneze, D., Salamonson, Y., Grollman, M., Montayre, J., & Ramjan, L. (2023). Mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for healthcare workers: A discussion paper. International journal of nursing studies, 138, 104389.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2022.104389
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