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A HEALTH COMMITTEE has been told that there is a low uptake in the number of healthcare professionals who opt to take the flu vaccine, and rewards could be used to encourage the uptake.
During a discussion on the subject of vaccine uptake in Ireland, the committee heard that there are a number of reasons contributing to a general mistrust of vaccines.
In her opening statement, Dr Colette Bonar, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at the Health Protection Unit said that ”all vaccines go under review to make sure that they are safe”.
Although the dramatic drop in HPV vaccine uptake has been the topic of some debate in Ireland, with levels dropping to 50% last year, the committee also heard about past issues with the MMR vaccine and problems with the flu vaccine uptake among healthcare professionals.
Dr Kevin Kelleher, the Assistant National Director of Public and Child Health for the HSE said that low rates of flu vaccine uptake is a problem internationally.
A particular problem, which the committee were asked about, is the low rate of uptake on the vaccine among Ireland’s healthcare workers.
Figures provided by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre have suggested that only one in four healthcare staff in Ireland have been vaccinated against the flu.
Kelleher mentioned that in North America, it’s mandatory for doctors and nurses to get vaccinated against the flu, for patients’ health and safety.
“There’s a particular problem with nurses uptake with the vaccine, and it could be to do with leadership,” he said.
“Incentives for the institution or individual does seem to work to increase those rates.”
“For example, giving them chocolates, which is advised in medical literature, or iPads [an incentive presumably for hospitals, rather than individuals].”
The General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation reacted angrily to his comments, which he said were ”a perfect example of why Irish nurses and midwives walked away from the Irish health sector”.
Doran told Today with Sean O’Rourke that that kind of comment was ‘absolutely objectionable’ and Kelleher should respect nurses’ opinions and not treat them like children.
Vaccine effect
During the committee, frequent reference was made to Dr Karina Butler’s opening statement. She is the chairperson with the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, and a practicing paediatrician.
“Vaccines work, vaccines save lives. You’ve heard the numbers and they’re dramatic,” she said, but stressed that the individual stories behind the numbers were even stronger.
“In the 1940s, my uncle died of diphtheria when he was 4 years old. Shortly after, my grandfather died of oropharyngeal cancer, which is preventable now most likely.
She said that during a polio epidemic in the 60s, she remembers being in a ward Capa hospital full of children in wheelchairs.
“In the 1960s, people were getting measles and mumps but we were the lucky ones cause we were covered. Others now have lung problems and have lost their sight.”
Now, when I see my two-year-old grandchild, because of all these vaccines I don’t have to worry about him getting those diseases anymore.
This week I left the bedside of a two-year-old who is fighting for his life against meningitis. This is the real impact of vaccinations.
She said that although there is no medicine or therapy that is 100% safe for every person, the benefits of vaccines greatly outweigh the risks.
“We would not give vaccines if we did not truly believe they were safe.”
HPV
When questioning the experts before the health committee today, Fianna Fáil’s Billy Kelleher said that he had been told ‘girls decide as they’re waiting to get vaccinated in school that as a group, they’re not going ahead with it’.
Dr Brenda Corcoran, Consultant in Public Medical Care at the National Immunisation Office said that the fact that doctors and experts don’t get to meet with parents and explain the vaccine to them, could be contributing to the misinformation and mistrust.
Dr Joan Gilvarry, Director of Human Products at the Irish Medicines Board said that 72 million people had been vaccinated against HPV worldwide, so there was a vast amount of knowledge on the vaccine.
She explained why two countries, Denmark and Japan, reported problems with the vaccine.
She said that symptoms of chronic pain, and chronic fatigue were reported in Denmark, so the EU’s health commission conducted a Europe-wide review. The committee had representation from all European states, and they spoke to health and safety experts and patient groups.
They made a legally binding decision that there was no causal relationship with this, and Denmark continues to use it now, she said.
In Japan, the HPV vaccine was taken out of programme but Gilvarry stressed that this was not in agreement with their regulatory authority.
The Irish Cancer Society estimates that the dramatic drop off on the HPV vaccine uptake in Ireland for the 2015/2016 academic year will result in the death of at least 40 girls due to cervical cancer, and that a further 1,000 girls will have to undergo invasive therapy to prevent the pre-cancer form of HPV.
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Anyone who genuinely is interested in supporting the force should want the bad ones removed, but we never hear the good stories. I’d like to tell a good story. One night my sister complained to a neighbor that his truck was parked in a way that blocked the street. He slashed her tires then ran after her husband with the knife. 6 Minutes later a van arrived. Prior incidents left my sister with zero faith in the Gardi and she told them that to their faces
The senior one gave her his personal mobile and told her if she was scared at any time to call him. He then walked closer to her, looked her in the eye and with a kind of steely determination said ”I’m not like the one you met on the road, I’m going to do everything I can to restore your faith in us”. He sent help every single time (in one case an armed colleague) to her house when the guy did some things to intimidate her.
They’d done a good job with our statements and talking to the judge to the point where as the senior officer said ”ok I’d like to call…” the judge said ”not necessary, this ones easy”. He terminated the guys license (thus livelihood) and sent him to prison for a year. I could tell 1-2 bad stories too, but they get heard on their own.
We sat there in a weird kind of shock, Jesus we actually got justice…
It should also be taken into account here that the legislation being utilised by Gardaí in these circumstances is completely out of date and from another era entirely. The politicians are quite happy to let the Gardaí take the flak here but many of these problems have been caused by a lack of political will to provide strong legislative support to our police to deal with such situations.
I once stopped a fella beating the bejasus outta his misses in town, she thanked me by jumping on my back and helped him beat me! Domestics are mad Ted!
Yeah you guys are right in a way, it’s hard to know how your intervention will be received and domestic violence is not always black and white. However, in these cases, the person being assaulted asked the gardai for assistance. They weren’t given that help. In fact as once of the case studies states, they were told not to ask for help the next time. Regardless of the type of assault the guards have a duty to protect us once a then call is made. Domestic violence is particularly abhorrent as the victim is left with the abuser in their own home, the guards should treat that situation with more gravity, not less.
The worst assaults happen behind closed doors not on our streets..
Actually I don’t want to hear about the good individuals in the force, I want the entire lot to change. If I was to say the one thing that had to go it would be arrogance. In my experience they treat the public like we are idiots and they treat victims like they are criminals. That’s a feature and an attitude throughout the entire force.
Really? You’ve met all 13,000 guards eh?
“DV is often reciprocal. in other words there are 2 of them in a relationship at it.”
I don’t know why this comment was downvoted, the real statistics are that DV is around 60% reciprocal, with the remainder evenly split between men and women.
the biggest problem with domestic cases is probably the reluctance of the witnesses.
There is obviously a serious issue regarding DV, and the follow up of reporting same, in our country and I’m glad this report has highlighted the issue. However, I think the Gardaí get a lot of unfair criticism in general. I must say any dealings I have had with Gardaí have been mostly positive.
By far the most serious issue is the massive underreporting of female on male domestic violence.
Nothing will change because laziness and a couldn’t care less attitude is systemic in the entire organisation . Too many senior gardai paid big salaries and do nothing and nobody oversees what exactly they contribute to policing
Proper investment in reorganisation, infrastructure and new management (why waste time training dinosaurs?) will give us a police service we can be proud of and one we can all respect.
The men and women who serve us need to have confidence that their efforts are recognised, and that the old method of district policing where the senior ranks play sheriff needs to be eliminated.
It’s a small country. Do we really need that many divisions?
Once there are children involved,social workers should visit unannounced!! So many children have fallen through the net, it makes me sick!!
Well maybe, but this would face a lot of backlash too, as it would be seen as increasing the rights of social workers to interfere with families.
What exactly is the problem with saying there’s two of them in it?
Depends on who you say it to and whether you use it as an excuse to avoid dealing with the situation. It’s dismissive, that’s the problem.
There is no problem with it but when an arrest is made it is usually a male who is arrested which is what feminists crave.
The other fact which they ignore is that almost 60% of all domestic abuse is mutual.
lol…
Bandon Garda station have some really interesting tapes.
just doin me duty…
Thanks Snorre,
Hang on to those tapes for me, could get awkward if they went on the missing list.
those idiots should be sacked for negligence
i can’t believe most of the comments here, i was ready to go on how the guards treat women and dv but to see most people agreeing with the guards blaming the women saying ah if you jump in SHE’LL only start hitting you and the one that realy annoys me i bet ye she hits him and the dont annoy him let him sleep it off. No wounder the guards dont think domestic violence is a crime when most of society in ireland doesnt think its a crime,Its a sad day for me today to reliase this as the people i know are disgusted by this yet most comments here does not reflect that, i realy thought ireland had grown up.
More gutter press journalism, you’d get more accurate unbiased news in the Beano than The Journal.
Actually I think this series is quite refreshing and it’s probably the only outlet that could report this way. Can you see the times being effective? We have a problem with the police force. No harm in shining a light on it.
Hard to say whether it isn’t around as much today maybe, but there has always been an inherent inner hidden aggression in the Irish psyche I think. We can flip from smile to punch in the blink of an eye, especially the older generations. That Oirish overly friendly thing was always a bit of a fake psychotic act I thought. How people act when the doors are closed is something else entirely.
I love Ryan Carrols story
What a safe place to be to post comments like two sides to every story , pair if them in it, etc ,, this attitude leaves the victim male or female with even less hope and more insecurity , but it makes on lookers feel comfortable and allows abuse to become a way of life , some times it’s important to reach out that little bit more
The majority of domestic violence incidents are reciprocal, whether you like it or not.
Interim Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan said she was aware that some victims had felt let down by the gardaí.
Robert Olson, Chief Inspector of the Garda Síochána says, We had about 11,000 domestic violence incidents and there were only 287 cases where somebody got arrested. That needs to be looked at very closely, we’re concerned about that.”
Kindly get a grip Noirin,,,,,,,, According to the figures given above, the ”Some victims” that you are referring to shockingly relates to 10,713 reported incidents of Domestic Violence for which there was no arrest.
How in God’s name can you even stand there and try to play down such an enormous figure to make it sound like only a handful of people were affected?
I think you’ll find that these figures speak for themselves,,,
It is my own personal opinion that for even just 1 incident of Domestic violence it should be enough to see the perpetrator charged and face the prospect of jail!
The problem is that the new legislation they wish to bring in here is deeply anti-male.
All abuse is wrong and over 50% of all IPV is against males, yet the new proposed legislation is named,
“Violence against women”.
Wake up and see that this feminist mindset will ultimately cause more heart ache than anything else.
have your say