For the first time, all major hospitals in Mercer County, N.J., are requiring clinical staff members to be vaccinated against the flu, according to a report by The Times of Trenton.
St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton has had a flu shot policy since 2010; this year, Robert Wood Johnson University in Hamilton, University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro and two Capital Health hospitals in Hopewell and Trenton all enacted a mandatory flu shot policy.
"It's always been a situation where healthcare workers are very strongly encouraged to get a flu vaccine, to protect themselves and also protect the patients that they help take care of," Kerry McKean Kelly, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Hospital Association, told The Times of Trenton.
The hospitals generally accept religious and medical exemptions to getting the flu shot. They make it easy for employees to receive vaccinations, setting up stations in the cafeteria or other places where staff members gather, according to the report.
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