ODESSA, Texas — Healthcare workers and professionals encourage you to get your flu shot every year, but around this time, they are all also making sure to keep themselves protected as well.
Over at Midland Memorial Hospital, all of their staff will be getting their flu vaccine this week.
“Tomorrow we start giving our employees seasonal flu vaccines everyone seems anxious to get a flu vaccine this year. We will also start giving our inpatients flu vaccines," MMH Infection Preventionist Val Sparks said. "Hopefully we can protect our patients if we are protected so if we are not sharing the flu then hopefully they will not get the flu in our facility."
It's also very important for the MMH to keep their staff healthy in a time like this, since they have some members already out from illnesses.
"Staffing remains challenging but not just due to flu. We have individuals out with COVID we have individuals out with flu we have individuals out with strep," Sparks said. "Whatever’s circulating in our community is also circulating in our employee population as well."
However, even with some staff currently out sick, it has had no direct impact on operations at the hospital.
"We are staffed as well as we have been in the last few months," Sparks said. "We still have positions open but it is nothing like it was during the COVID epidemic."
According to Sparks, the hospital has already started monitoring all the flu like illnesses that come through the door.
"Of course we’ve begun monitoring for the Texas Department of Health Services and we are reporting any flu A flu Bs and how many influenza like illnesses we are seeing through our emergency department," Sparks said.