Vaccination rates among health care workers not high enough: AHS

Flu season is upon us and that means vaccination clinics will soon be open to the public.

Alberta Health Services is kicking off their influenza campaign on Monday, but it appears health care professionals are still not getting the message about why it’s important to get your shot.

“Last year within Alberta Health Services, just over 60 per cent of our total staff got the influenza vaccine, which is not high enough. I think our target is 80 per cent,” says Dr. Gerry Predy.

He notes it’s still just a choice and AHS tries to make the vaccine accessible in all workplaces, but AHS believes education is a key factor to help boost vaccination rates.

“We have champions on each of our units to promote the vaccine and I think some of that has worked quite well,” says Dr. Predy. “We’ll continue to do work on it with our workplace health and safety group this year, to try to get those numbers higher — closer to 80 per cent.”

According to AHS, 53 people died from influenza during the 2015-2016 season. There were 5,311 lab confirmed cases of the flu and the Calgary zone had the highest number of reported cases. A total of 27 percent of Albertans were vaccinated.

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