1. Analyze the Ethical Issues
The issue at hand is whether healthcare workers in the US should have to get vaccinations in order to do their work. This mandatory vaccination issue has a number of important ethical sub-issues that demand analysis. The overarching public health goal of this policy is to prevent the spread of disease generally and within vulnerable populations specifically (Galanakis et al, 2013). Healthcare workers are more likely than the average citizen to come into contact with people who have a range of different diseases and conditions. As a result, they may be perfect conduits to spread disease in their communities if not protected.
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There are many competing goals and concerns for various stakeholders. Medical professionals have a privacy and autonomy issue at play (Galanakis et al, 2013). They might argue that they should get to make their own decisions about their bodies and their health decisions. Hospitals, on the other hand, have liability issues. They also want their workers to remain as healthy as possible in order to do the work. For patients, there is another ethical issue. If medical professionals are not vaccinated, then they might not want to work with people who have infectious diseases (Galanakis et al, 2013). This would create a conflict of interest in which people with diseases may not get the care they need or deserve.
At current, there is no federal requirement that healthcare workers get vaccinated before working in hospitals and clinics. There are, however, recommended guidelines from the federal government. These recommendations play a critical role in shaping state law. States have their own individual laws on what nurses, doctors, and the like must do before they can work. Many of these immunization laws have not been challenged. This is due, in part, to the fact that people who work in the medical field are among the least likely people to fight immunization because they understand the importance of getting vaccinations for all people.
2. Evaluate Ethical Dimensions of Public Health Options
Utility is one of the most important ethical dimensions in many any decision. The principle of utility asks a simple question—what decision will be the most useful for society at large? In this case, there is great utility in requiring healthcare workers to be vaccinated. The only people who are affected are the workers who are inconvenienced in some way. For this, society receives a particular benefit in the form of added public safety (Little et al, 2015).
Another concern is justice. The principle of justice asks the critical question of whether something is right and whether people are treated equally and fairly. The questions of equality and equity are different questions. It is clear that there is no equality when it comes to workers in this field. They are subjected to rules that other workers do not have to face. However, there could be equity. Equity means fairness, and what is fair may not always be equal. In this case, it is fair to ask healthcare workers to do something extra because of the extra exposure risks in their job.
Another issue is the respect for individual liberty. People in the US are generally given the right to make their own decisions about their healthcare. This is understood to be a part of the US Constitution, and it has been outlined in the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, among others. In this instance, requiring a person to get a shot certainly goes against their personal liberty (Little et al, 2015). It strips from them their autonomy. While it is not always improper to take away someone’s liberty in this way, one must be careful before doing it. One must make sure there is an excellent reason for doing so before one takes such a drastic measure. It would appear that public health is an important enough issue to justify stripping away some personal liberty in this case.
3. Justify One Particular Public Health Action
Requiring healthcare workers to get certain vaccinations is a good decision that will protect the public while also causing the least harm. In this instance, the issue at hand is overall public safety. Vaccinations in some people produce what is called a herd immunity. This means that even if one person has a disease, if the people that person comes into contact with are vaccinated, then society at large will be fine. It is only when multiple people are not vaccinated that one might run into problems of public health. In this case, requiring a small number of professionals who have heavy contact with infected populations to get shots is one of the best ways to ensure that society at large is protected from outbreaks (Little et al, 2015).
In addition, this is a least infringement issue, even if it does infringe on the rights of some people in the medical field. Ultimately there is no way around this when it comes to the conflict of interest involved in this situation. If a person working in the medical field is not vaccinated, then that person is not going to be able or willing to provide top-level medical care to those in need. Even if one believes that he or she can be impartial and do a good job, it is natural for human beings to stay away if they have concerns about their own health. This means, then, that the only way to produce the proper health outcomes for patients from an ethical perspective is to require all people who come into contact with them to have various forms of vaccinations.
- Galanakis, E., Jansen, A., Lopalco, P. L., & Giesecke, J. (2013). Ethics of mandatory vaccination for healthcare workers. Euro Surveill, 18(45), 20627.
- Little, K. E., Goodridge, S., Lewis, H., Lingard, S. W., Din, S., Tidley, M., … & Hayes, S. (2015). Occupational vaccination of health care workers: uptake, attitudes and potential solutions. Public Health, 129(6), 755-762.
