SF Hospital Staff Not Likely To Get
Smallpox Vaccine
City's Department Of Health Forbidding Health
Workers From Receiving One
Mar 4, 2003 11:46 am US/Pacific
SAN FRANCISCO
(AP)
The city's Department of
Public Health has forbidden health workers who
have direct contact with patients from receiving
smallpox vaccinations unless they can find a way
to avoid patients.
Dr. Susan Fernyak, director city's heath
department communicable disease prevention and
smallpox planning, confirmed to the San Francisco
Chronicle that patients with HIV, cancer and skin
conditions could stand at risk of infection if
they were to come in contact with vaccinated
health workers.
The smallpox vaccine is itself an infectious agent
and there is a risk that newly immunized hospital
workers could accidentally transmit cowpox to
patients.
With a tight budget and little wiggle room for
scheduling, the city policy effectively represents
a ban on the vaccine for San Francisco General
Hospital staffers.
"We didn't want anyone who is vaccinated, and is
still infectious, to be working with patients
directly," Fernyak said. "We have a high number of
patients with HIV, with certain skin conditions,
with cancer, with transplanted organs or who are
taking immunosuppressive agents."
A few doctors and administrators have found ways
to juggle their schedules so that they can get
vaccinated and avoid patients, Fernyak said.
Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, said the risk of
bioterrorism should not be taken lightly and that
any reluctance of hospital workers to be
vaccinated could be shortsighted.
"Here's the problem: I don't think anyone knows
what an attack would look like," he said. "Would
it be one case in Middletown, USA? Or a thousand
cases at different locations? You must have people
in place to vaccinate people."
Nurse union activists say most nurses at San
Francisco General Hospital support the policy
which requires that vaccinated workers refrain
from direct contact with patients.
"If you want to get the vaccine, and you've got
vacation time on the books, go out and use it,"
said Lorraine Thiebaud, vice president of Service
Employees International Union Local 790.
Kaiser Permanente has put plans on hold to
vaccinate its first-response staffers. Dr. David
J. Witt, chair of Kaiser's infectious disease
program, told the San Francisco Chronicle that
Kaiser's doctors might be more willing to get the
smallpox vaccination than union workers because
the physicians have a better disability package.
(© 2003 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast,
rewritten, or redistributed. )
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