HEALTH PROFESSIONAL DEBATE - WOULD YOU VACCINATE? - VALUES SNAPSHOT
Last month you qualified as a nurse. You now have your first job, working in a health centre at the local private school. Today your supervisor has told you that you are to administer the 3 in 1 booster (Diphtheria, Tetanus and Polio) and the MenACWY vaccine (Meningitis A, C, W and Y) to all 14 year olds whose parents have provided explicit consent for these injections in written form to the school.
Your supervisor is extremely keen on immunisation and tells you that you must vaccinate every child, without exception. He says the science is conclusive - vaccination is safe and in everyone's best interests. He says that sometimes these adolescents get upset and anxious about vaccinations, but if that happens you should just reassure them that all is well and go ahead and inject them.
The same supervisor disciplined another junior nurse recently for refusing to carry out her delegation instructions, and although this nurse is now looking for another job, she is curretly finding it hard to work with the supervisor who, everyone agrees, has an authoritarian management style.
You begin your vaccinations for the day. All is going fine until you ask Andrew to roll up his sleeve for the needle. He gets very upset and says that he really doesn't want to have the Jab, he has read about them and he doesn't agree with vaccination, despite what his parents say. You ask him to sit down while you check his paperwork which confirms that his parents have indeed consented to the jab. You call your supervisor who says you absolutely must go ahead as the paperwork is signed. She becomes annoyed and tells you again to just reassure him and do the injection, as this is what the parents want and they will be upset with the school if this vaccination does not go ahead.
You go back to Andrew and tell him he must be immunised. Andrew starts to cry and sob and is physically resisting any contact with you by lashing out.
He says he is scared and can he go now? What would you do? Do you agree with the proposal?
Bibliography : https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/mmr.html ( Accessed 05/06/18).
It is proposed that you go ahead and vaccinate Andrew