New Jersey Senate Votes on Flu Shot

TRENTON, N.J. — Because the country is experiencing high levels of influenza-like-illness (ILI), a bill that would require health care facilities to offer flu shots to their employees was unanimously approved by the New Jersey Senate Committee on Feb. 4.

The bill (S-1464), sponsored by Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee Chairman Joseph F. Vitale, would make it mandatory for state-licensed health care facilities, such as hospitals, nursing homes and home health care agencies, to start an annual influenza vaccination program. It would require each facility to provide either on- or off-site flu vaccinations to each health care employee, unless the worker provides documentation of a current flu vaccination or signs a document declining the service. Plus, the facilities would have to keep record of influenza vaccinations for each of its employees.

Another part of the program would include education to inform employees about the benefits of flu vaccines, non-vaccine flu control measures, and the symptoms, transmission and potential impact of the flu. The bill would also make it so that the facilities would need to conduct an annual review of the program. The only way that a health care facility would be able to stop the annual service would be if there was a determined shortage of available vaccines by the Commissioner of Health and Senior Services.

“A flu shot is simply the best and easiest way to prevent against getting and spreading the flu,” Senator Vitale said in a statement. “For those individuals, such as health care workers, who work closely with people who are sick and elderly, this is not about just protecting themselves, but about protecting those who are most vulnerable to the illness. In 2011, more than 50,000 people died from the flu, with a disproportionate amount being over the age of 65 or with chronic health conditions — the type of people who frequent medical facilities. For the protection of the patients and of health care employees, health care facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes have a professional and ethical responsibility to provide access to this vaccine.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 66.9 percent of health care workers received an influenza vaccine during the 2011 to 2012 flu season, but those that did not get a vaccine could pose a threat to patients with weakened immunities. For example, during the 1991 to 1992 flu season, a New York nursing home had an influenza outbreak in which 65 of the residents became infected: 34 of those cases turned into pneumonia, 19 residents were hospitalized and two died because of influenza-related causes.

The bill will now head to the full Senate for consideration.