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People over 65 and other vulnerable people should receive the first doses of the corona vaccine first. These are the recommendations of an ethics group. Anesthesiologists believe that priority should be given to healthcare professionals who are at risk of becoming infected or infecting others.
At Ullevål Hospital’s Eye Department, several hundred employees were quarantined in March. The ward was closed and the patients were flown to other hospitals. Photo: Monica Strømdahl
In the recommendation of the National Institute of Public Health on who should be given priority for coronary vaccination, health personnel are not at the forefront.
– This is contrary to common practice and international recommendations and should not be taken into account. This is stated in a publication in the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association on Wednesday.
The position has been signed by the board of directors of the Norwegian Association of Anesthesiology.
– We want FHI to take a look at the recommendations of the World Health Organization and other major international organizations. Then they get the recommendations back on track, says board chair Jon Laake.
Last week, a group of experts presented advice to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health on who should get vaccinated against COVID-19 first. The recommendations are that health personnel should be given priority as group number two. Behind those over 65 and patients in risk groups. In total there are approx. 950,000 people over 65 in Norway. The health authorities do not believe that they will receive enough vaccines to vaccinate everyone immediately.
If there is a lot of infection in the population, the expert group will put the health personnel first in the queue.
– It is morally problematic to ask healthcare personnel to carry out work that involves a well-documented health risk and at the same time deny them the best possible protection against disease, writes the leader of the Norwegian Association of Anesthesiology, Jon Laake in a post. Photo: Private
Get three reasons
In the discussion post, anesthesiologists write:
«The proposal of the group of experts is contrary to the usual practice in epidemics. It is common for health personnel in outposts (with a high risk of infecting themselves and others) to have the first priority when the population is going to be vaccinated. “
The reasons are that health professionals have:
- Protection requirement when you are asked to perform work that could endanger your own life and health. In the same way as other workers
- Infection and illness mean that important health services cannot be performed.
- Health professionals who are not protected by the vaccine can infect their patients and pose a risk to the health of vulnerable patient groups.
In a hospital ward treating coronary patients, the risk of infection is high in any case.
– The expert group recommended that the high-risk group be given priority over health personnel because, as far as we know, they have a lower risk of serious illness and death, explains Ole Frithjof Norheim, member of the expert group.
He points out that Norway has good routines and equipment for health personnel.
– Priority will also be given to healthcare professionals at higher risk due to age or underlying disease.
Norheim notes that the group believes that healthcare personnel must come to the forefront if there is widespread infection in society and capacity is at a breaking point.
Morally problematic
Anesthesiologists believe that it is morally problematic to ask healthcare personnel to perform work that involves a well-documented health risk and, at the same time, deny them the best possible protection against disease.
– For employees in that job, it does not matter much what the general spread of the infection is in the surrounding society: in a hospital ward treating coronary patients, the risk of infection is high in any case, it says in the publication.
Laake believes that the practice of vaccinating among healthcare professionals is established and straightforward – people vaccinate each other. Vaccination against seasonal influenza is completed in two to three days.
He envisions a scenario in which the oldest and sickest are vaccinated first, but the pandemic develops suddenly and many, including healthcare professionals, become infected.
– How is a vaccine made then? He wonders.
They concern, among other things, the infection situation in Ullevål in March. Many employees in the eye department were infected. It went beyond operations: operations were postponed and patients were flown to other hospitals
– Being asked to stand at the end of the queue when a vaccine is to be administered reveals an instrumental attitude towards health service employees and can rightly be perceived as offensive, anesthesiologists write.
They are also looking for doctors in the expert group.
– Both they and others affected as representatives and relatives of patients, other employees of the health sector and representatives of other sectors of society, are conspicuous by their absence.
