Addressing Vaccine-Hesitant Parents in Healthcare

Introduction

Immunization is the process by where an individual immune system is made fortified against infectious agents. It stimulates an individual's immune system to protect the individual against subsequent disease or infection. Vaccination is a proven process for controlling as well as eliminating severe infectious agents and it is estimated to prevent many deaths yearly (Delany et al., 2014 p701 paragraph 1). Additionally, it is cost-effective for health care investments. Generally, Immunization has helped prevent deaths every year which would have resulted from; influenza, pertussis (whooping cough), diphtheria, tetanus as well as measles. Regardless of these benefits, Diekema (2013 p.2661, paragraph 2), states that dealing with families who hesitate to Immunize their child is very frustrating for several health care practitioners. The parent refusal to immunize their children means that they reject one of today’s medicine’s most effective tools when it comes to child protection against diseases and as well interfere with counselling time, therefore, impacting the health care provider’s ability to offer better services to other children. Due to this, there is a huge number of health care providers who dismiss these vaccine-hesitant parents to look for another physician. This paper discusses why vaccine-hesitant parents or parents who fail to vaccinate their children should not be dismissed from local health care.

Hough-Telford et al., (2016 p7 (last paragraph) indicate that there is increased vaccine refusal between 2006 and 2013. Some of the patients who refuse vaccines believe that vaccination is unnecessary. Additionally, such patients have discomfort and concern about the safety of the vaccines. On the other hand, Diekema (2013 p.2662 (paragraph 2) suggest that Clinics are obliged to protect their patients from infections which are vaccine-preventable, therefore, allowing unvaccinated families in their clinics creates a risk to their vaccine compliant patients. Additionally, the study (p.2662 (paragraph 1) while analysis the literature by Buttenheim and colleagues indicate how practices which remain open when it comes to seeing patients and can create a “hotspots” in an occurrence of a disease outbreak. This arguments, however, have less force when considering the primary risk presented by the unvaccinated children in the community. Clinic strategies to prevent unvaccinated children from accessing health care fails to create a positive contribution to the health of the community and in most cases increases the risk of spreading infections around the society (Diekema, 2013 p.2661(paragraph3) -2662 (paragraph 1)). Moreover, Block (2015 p.651 (paragraph 4)), terms Pediatricians who dismiss parents who have unvaccinated children “unprofessional”. Therefore, parents who fail to vaccinate their children should not be dismissed from the local health care practice.

Moreover, regardless of efforts by physicians, some families are not convinced to immunize their children. After several attempts to persuade them, to vaccinate fails some pediatricians as stated earlier chose to dismiss these parents as a last resort. As per (Diekema, 2013 p.2661(paragraph 2), parents of unvaccinated children represent a rejection of one the most effective tools in protecting children health and as well, waste the time of physician while being counselled which deters the busy physician from attending other children. Additionally, the study (p.2662(paragraph 3), argue that physicians have the right to choose which patient to attend to and, that children who are under-vaccinated poses risk to their daily practice. Besides, the time spent trying to communicate ad educate these parents leads to loss of revenue. Though this claim is valid, ethical debate against dismissal has been ongoing. Currently as per Edwards et al., (2016 p. e9 (paragraph 2)) there is no published information which is published with tough policies of either vaccinating or be dismissed. It should, therefore, be known that similar legal as well as ethical constraints which exist to dismiss an individual for any legal reason such as failure to vaccinate. Moreover, the dismissal should be carried out in a way which is consistent with the existing laws which prohibit patient’s abandonment. Regardless of these laws, there should always be notification which is official to the parent as well as information provision regarding new physician search. Moreover, the dismissing health care provider is mandated to continue with the provision of the current treatment as well as the provision of emergency care for a while in the United States (p. e9 paragraph 3)). Looking at the legal provision, dismissal of patients due to lack of vaccination to their children is useless and creates a negative impact on the affected parent as well as the community.

Vaccines administration has been severally associated with deaths as well as disabilities. Some of these vaccines have been associated with a variety of contamination as well as handling problems. Just like any other pharmaceutical agent, they are subject to mishandling which can result in extreme cases like death. For instance, the Cutter incident which happened on April 1955 is an example of vaccine contamination which resulted in caused issues due to quality control errors in the manufacturing process. The error left 200 children with paralysis while ten died (Fitzpatric, 2006 p.156, paragraph 1). With this knowledge, parents may refuse to vaccinate their children therefore, failures to vaccinate or failure to follow vaccination schedules may be due to misinformation. Regardless of this evidence, dismissing under-vaccinated children is not right.

First, parents fail to vaccinate their children since they lack proper information, therefore, health care providers represent the best opportunity to persuade families who hesitate to vaccinate their children to do so. Leask et al., 2012 p2, paragraph 2) suggest that physicians have a key role in establishing public trust in vaccination which includes addressing immunizations concerns. On the other hand, Edwards et al., (2016 p. e7 paragraph 3), claims that a crucial communication factor with vaccine-hesitant families is to give crucial information about vaccines safety and effectiveness as well as the risk posed to unvaccinated child and families. This shows that, the health care provider should keep on providing more information to the parent and encouraging them to vaccinate their children since dismissal will only create risk to the children who sometimes knows nothing about vaccines as well as the community (Diekema (2013 p.2661, paragraph 1, 4). Nevertheless, Grossman et al., (2017 p11, paragraph 2), suggest that discussion which is effective with vaccine-hesitant parents needs flexible ad clear communication strategies additionally, the study (p11, paragraph 2) suggest that novel communication plans like motivation interview as well as storytelling have been proved to be effective. This suggests that dismissal is not the solution rather, regular communication with vaccine-hesitant parents to make them change their mind, therefore, reducing the risk posed by unvaccinated children to society.

Conclusion

Vaccine refusal is a threat to the community as well as to the individual children. therefore, vaccine refusal can result in dismissal by health care providers who are obliged to protect their patients. On the other hand, the dismissal of parents and families who hesitate or fail to vaccinate their children is thereat to the whole community. Therefore, to address these challenges, good communication is important to maintain high uptake of child vaccines. Moreover, dismissal is not a solution, therefore, this supports my disagreement that parents who refuse to vaccinate their children or hesitate to immunize their children should not be dismissed from local health care practice.

References

Block, S.L., 2015. The paediatrician's dilemma: refusing the refusers of infant vaccines. The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 43(3), pp.648-653.

Delany, I., Rappuoli, R. and De Gregorio, E., 2014. Vaccines for the 21st century. EMBO molecular medicine, 6(6), pp.708-720.

Diekema, D.S., 2013. Provider dismissal of vaccine-hesitant families: misguided policy that fails to benefit children. Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics, 9(12), pp.2661-2662.

Edwards, K.M., Hackell, J.M., Committee on Infectious Diseases and Committee on Practice and Ambulatory Medicine, 2016. Countering vaccine hesitancy. Pediatrics, 138(3), p.e20162146.

Fitzpatrick, M., 2006. The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to a Growing Vaccine Crisis.

Grossman, Z., Ashkenazi, S. and Rubin, L., 2017. How are we responding to vaccine-hesitant parents?. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 1(1), pp.9-11.

Hough-Telford, C., Kimberlin, D.W., Aban, I., Hitchcock, W.P., Almquist, J., Kratz, R. and O’Connor, K.G., 2016. Vaccine delays, refusals, and patient dismissals: a survey of pediatricians. Pediatrics, 138(3), p.e20162127.

Leask, J., Kinnersley, P., Jackson, C., Cheater, F., Bedford, H. and Rowles, G., 2012. Communicating with parents about vaccination: a framework for health professionals. BMC pediatrics, 12(1), p.154.