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PANDEMIC ALERT LEVEL
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Tracking the next pandemic: Avian Flu Talk

What should healthcare workers do?
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Poll Question: Should healthcare workers go to their jobs during an H5N1 pandemic?
Vote Poll Choice Votes Poll Statistics
47 [13.24%]
100 [28.17%]
208 [58.59%]

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Gimme View Drop Down
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Points: 428 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gimme Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 13 2006 at 6:32pm

I think it's an individual call.  No answer is right or wrong here. 

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I can not really say what I will do when the time comes. My mind keeps changing from day to day. I do not have any children so that is not an issue for me. 
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Originally posted by fiddlerdave2 fiddlerdave2 wrote:

It is.  Certainly as hypothecal as a H5N1 Pandemic.
 
 
Although the pandemic is hypothetical..as far as the H5N1 virus is concerned, it does not take a pandemic to expose a health care worker to the H5N1 virus. I thought that's what we were speaking of with regard to the oath a health care professional takes or does not take, whatever the case may be.
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Like I said, I have never taken any kind of oath; however, there are laws in place that govern what health care professionals can/can not do. For instance, abandonment is one illegal act that comes to mind right now. This is where a nurse or other health care professional abandons a patient after he/she has accepted responsibility for the care of the patient.

Not showing up for work would not fall under abondonment, but there may be other laws in place that pertain to a pandemic. I will have to research that one. Does anybody know if there is a specific law that requires health care workers to show up for work during a pandemic? The military for sure has strict laws about this, but I don't think that the civilian world has such requirements.



Edited by Proudest Monkey - May 14 2006 at 11:53am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 15 2006 at 9:24am
I think is an extremely bad poll, so I can't vote.  Where is the option of giving healthcare workers a choice?  What vow?  If you want to do the greatest good for the greatest number of patients, you have to keep yourself alive, so you don't approach some situation unprotected.  The poll suggests that Tamilfu is protection; what about biosafe triage techniques, needed personal protective equipment, protection from violence, protection of your family while away from home?  I plan to both protect myself, my significan others, and work overtime in as safe a manner possible;  I expect most colleages but not all to show up.  If someone wants to use some experimental drug on me to make it safe for me to work, I want Congress to enact legislation that immediately protects me from disability, loss of wages and income should that drug ruin my health.  I am chronically underpaid and shelling out lots of my own dollars and free hours on professional education and health activities I don't get paid for.  So I don't go into hazards because you think I owe something, or because of the pay.
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Points: 19 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote general Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 15 2006 at 9:34am
 '' I want congress to enact legislation"   But of course let's protect everyone who has to go to work . By the way were did you serve in Nam.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 29 2006 at 9:24pm
Does anyone remember the last time they had a real bad flu?  By the time I realized I was so sick I needed looking after, I was in bed shaking with my teeth chattering loudly.  My 7 yr old was the only one there!  I had no concept of time passing. 
 
I wasn't saying much, just there, and I hear, "Here is your hat and coat Mommy."  She climbed up and put the hat on my head and laid the wool winter coat over me.  I had a big smile for her.
I woke up later under all that and my teeth were thankfully quiet.
 
It was hard to recover from.  I had pain in my lower back and it was hard to walk for a while.  I also felt sad, weak.  That was mid May and I was feeling better by mid Aug. 
 
Members who have said people will want to be at home are correct.
Don't figure on anyone rushing to get to the hospital with the runs....
 
PS... disposable diapers for all for several days should be on your list.
 
I personally feel illness may be somewhere between the pandemics we have had more recently and the horror of 1918.
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 01 2006 at 7:32pm
Dakota and peers,
 
My mother is an RN and so I sympathize with you. 
 
I will not take my family to a hospital for BF because I think it will not be able to offer any help.  I feel that hospitals (at least in South Texas) offer very poor service now, an so there will be no point to going when they are overloaded. I have had family members in the hospital and they developed complications because of negligence.  I know because my mother and I stayed with the patient round the clock.  And if we had not been there my Grandmother could have died because of sloppy care.   
 
I think the medical system went to hell when hospitals became big for-profit business, and insurance companies started telling doctors how to treat patients, and lawyers lost integrity.
 
The problem is greed, and the nurses, doctors, and patients are paying the price.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 01 2006 at 8:21pm

After reading through most of this thread I don't understand how they (the legislators)  think they could manage to force medical staff to go to work.  If it's not strictly voluntary, with the only consequence of not showing up to work being loss of job then they will cause all kinds of chaos!

- Children can not be abandoned; schools will/should be closed and so a parent must be with them; 
 
- What if the health care employee is sick?   They should want them to stay home .....    how do they plan to prove someone is sick or not when they call in? 
 
- What kind of horrendous extra task force would have to be used to force people to go to work?   What process / who decides each situation?
 
-Why not plan to use the people who would be forcing people to go to work, to help take care of sick people who do not have family to take care of them?
 
- How can they put people in jail without "due process".  Courts aren't going to want to deal with this kind of nonsense during a pandemic.
 
- How about realizing medical people who choose to stay home to take care of family will be there to help us put the pieces back together after the storm passes.
 
I could go on and on.   May I suggest we brainstorm all these common sense ideas on a separate thread  for the purpose of eventually writing a document to bombard our government with. 
 
I'll start a new thread  WHY FORCING MEDICAL PERSONNEL TO WORK WILL CAUSE MORE HARM THAN GOOD
 
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Points: 145 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jknoel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2006 at 11:36am
Think about it this way.  Everyone is planning for the worst case scenario.  If indeed there is an extreme case rate and an extreme death rate, then all essential services will be compromised and I wouldn't be suprised is martial law was declared to help/force people to follow guidelines already set down.  And if it gets that bad, the last thing people will be worrying about is going to work.
The only way to grow is to take a chance.
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